BANGALORE: Fund-crunch Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has sponsored one more foreign trip for councillors. This time the trip is to Israel. Councillors will participate in the International conference on water technology, renewable energy and environment control between November 15 and 17. The conference is taking place at Tel Aviv, the second most popular state in Israel.
Though the multi-crore scam is creating ripples, a team of 14 members have left to Israel on Monday. “The flight was at 2 pm on Monday,” sources said. BBMP sources informed Express that though the junket is sponsored by Palike, councillors from the ruling party have claimed this to be a private firm’s sponsored trip. Mayor Sharadamma said she was not fully aware of the trip as it was state government holiday. “They (councillors and officials) told me that they are going to study about garbage and I have given permission. Once they come from Israel, I will get the clear picture,” she said.
It can be recalled that Mayor Sharadamma along with Opposition leader Uday Shankar, B T Ramesh, engineer-in-chief and others visited New York for a summit on ‘Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship: City Strategies Programme’ on November 2. The trip had cost BBMP about Rs 10 lakh. Sources also said that in the New York trip, BJP councillors took Congress leader Udayshankar and this time, they have taken JD(S) leader Padmanabha Reddy. “Just to silence opposition leaders, they added these opposition party leaders to their jaunt,” sources said.
Apart from foreign trips, it can be recalled that BBMP councillors earlier had visited Mumbai and New Delhi. These trips have become as good as jaunt at the cost of tax payer’s money.
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