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Meghalaya limits foreign visits by ministers, govt officials
Several of these foreign visits are often taken up on the basis of invitations, conferences, and delegations for various programmes like externally aided projects, capacity building programmes etc
In order to curb wasteful expenditure and ensure austerity in governance, the Meghalaya government has decided to limit the ‘foreign trips’ undertaken by cabinet ministers and government officials to two visits per financial year.
The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Conrad K Sangma late Friday evening.
Several of these foreign visits are often taken up on the basis of invitations, conferences, and delegations for various programmes like externally aided projects, capacity building programmes etc.
Addressing the media after a cabinet meeting, Cabinet minister and Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government spokesperson Paul Lyngdoh said, “Taking into account the fiscal limitations and also the need to rationalise these visits, it was decided that henceforth foreign visits of any officials of the state government including contractual staffs will be limited to two visits per financial year.”
He said if the same official has to undertake the second foreign visit, that official will have to submit the progress report of the first visit adding, “If the official is able to submit a satisfactory report with tangible results, then only the second visit will be cleared,” added Lyngdoh.
The minister further said it was also decided that the state government can sponsor only one visit and the next will have to be borne either by the Government of India or an external agency.
“The only exception will happen if that official is visiting a foreign country to receive an award on behalf of the Government of Meghalaya,” he added.
When asked, the minister said that the whole point is that there have been many requests and visits undertaken by several officials, which only needed the clearance of the chief minister.
“But today as a prudent fiscal measure, the cabinet has decided to rationalize such visits by reducing their frequency to two and also by obtaining progress reports so that there is no wasteful expenditure of the public exchequer,” he said.
He further clarified that in the case of cabinet ministers, this is tied to clearance by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
“A couple of weeks back, the MEA came up with very stringent conditions for even clearing such proposals of visits. This includes even the chief minister. They will come under this particular decision which means one official visit based on submission of a satisfactory progress report,” the minister said.
To another query, Lyngdoh admitted that some of the foreign visits seem to be irrational and therefore, there is a need to rationalise it.
“We can only say that the frequency does not match with the results so we decided to rationalize it,” he said while adding “because we are driven by the need to achieve results so what we are saying today is that the ministers/officials have to show results when undertaking an official visit.”
