The State government owes a whopping ₹2.21 crore to private travel operators for deputing vehicles for protocol purposes, and the above figure pertains to Tirupati revenue division alone.

The pending amount assumes significance in the wake of the State government getting into the eye of a storm after a family on pilgrimage was forced to get down in Ongole and their vehicle driven away to be used for the Chief Minister’s convoy. Apart from the President, the Vice President, the Chief Minister and other dignitaries, the divine destination is regularly thronged by VVIPs from other States for the Tirumala pilgrimage. Though it is a norm for the State to hire private vehicles from travel agents and pay them periodically, it however did not happen in this case.

The hire charges payable to a travel operator from July 2014 for using convoy vehicles under protocol to Tirumala/Tirupati have touched ₹1.97 crore. When the fuel bills and vehicle repair charges are added, it reached ₹2,21,49,488, according to the communication sent by the Revenue Divisional Officer to the district Collector, requesting sanction of the above amount. The district administration had even written to the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration Vijayawada, but reportedly to no avail.

Settle the pending bills, says BJP

“If this is the fate of one district, imagine the quantum of pending bills across the funds-starved state”, remarked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State spokesperson G. Bhanuprakash Reddy. Addressing the media here on Friday on the pending bills, he appealed to the government to settle the pending bills and not drive the travel operators to resort to any extreme step. “People are panicking at the thought of government officials landing at their doorstep to strip them of their valuables and vehicles”, he said in an oblique reference to the Ongole incident.

Taking a jibe at the Ministry of Finance for having taken loans to the tune of ₹3.5 lakh crore from various funding agencies, he taunted the ‘Ministry of Debt’ to release a white paper on the funds spent by it under various heads.