Most of this note is not directly relevant, certainly not the title; except
for the last line.
Pankaj
Don't take your wife along, Speaker tells MPs

IANS[ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2004 05:26:58 PM ]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/886860.cms
NEW DELHI: Indian MPs have been asked to travel judiciously, without taking
their spouses along every time, and refuse expensive gifts - or risk being
prohibited from travelling at all.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who has been trying to bring order in
a particularly chaotic lower House, has come up with stronger guidelines for
parliamentary panels going on tours.

Though guidelines were already present, they have been made more stringent
and black-and-white after criticism of expensive study tours by MPs' panels
at a heavy cost to state-owned enterprises that foot the bill.

In the new rules, yet to be circulated among all chairmen of parliamentary
panels, MPs have been asked to take spouses or attendants along only on
medical grounds.

If they take companions without permission, the MPs risk being barred from
travelling at all. And if they are permitted to take companions along, the
members have to bear the expenses for their stay.

The panels are to confine the number of tours to three or four in the
intersession period, and the MPs cannot use the tour to do their own
sightseeing or personal work.

The members have also been asked to refrain from accepting expensive gifts
from the public sector undertaking that is sponsoring the tour. In the
interest of decorum, they have been strongly advised not to consume liquor
during official events.

While on tour, the MPs cannot accept private invitations.

"We have discussed the guidelines extensively, and it is felt that the study
tours of parliamentary panels are becoming too lavish and a great burden to
public sector enterprises," said a veteran MP and chairman of a
parliamentary standing panel.

"Guidelines are already there, but the speaker is just trying to enforce and
reinforce them."

He gave the example of the standing panel on railways that visited the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands ostensibly to explore the possibility of a rail
network there.


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