Senior ministers in the Manmohan Singh cabinet on Thursday raised the banner of protest against austerity measures including a ban on first class air travel and conferences in five star hotels, compelling finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to clarify that these were merely guidelines.
Mukherjee?s intervention at the meeting of the Union cabinet on Thursday came after senior ministers including agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, commerce minister Anand Sharma and minister of new and renewable energy Farooq Abdullah referred to a circular issued by the finance ministry that has asked government representatives to travel economy instead of business class. The finance minister also clarified that the measures were in place only for a year.
The circular was issued following the debate triggered by the Indian Express report which revealed that external affairs minister SM Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor have enjoyed the hospitality of five star hotels for the last three months in spite of Congress president Sonia Gandhi?s call for austerity measures to be adopted by the UPA government in the wake of a severe drought. Both ministers had to vacate the five star hotels and shift to government guest houses.
At the meeting on Thursday, however, senior ministers voiced their unhappiness, especially over the proposal to halt travel in business class. Commerce minister Anand Sharma, according to sources, pointed out that on a number of occasions he had travelled for upto 12 hours at a stretch, sometimes returning after attending a couple of meetings. Sharma claimed it would not be possible for him to do such travel on economy class.
For Farooq Abdullah, the limited space in economy class seemed to be the constraint. Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar recounted an incident when he had travelled in economy class as defence minister. Pawar said that he was not recognised by many of the passengers and even those who had come to receive him on the flight almost went back after failing to locate him in the business class section.