Call off the foreign jaunts

The proposed Karnataka ministerial jaunt to China and Europe is nothing short of a slap on the face of the public. While the State is reeling from farmers' suicides, power outages, severe traffic bottlenecks, poor roads, insufficient drinking water, badly maintained drains and worse, the Ministers, instead of rushing to their constituencies, wish to go on an all-expenses, overseas tour, camouflaged as usual, as "development tours".
By the way, does anyone remember what happened after the recent development tour of the city fathers? Has there been any value-addition, any development worth mentioning in Bangalore, in the aftermath of the tour? Whatever projects are being taken up and are in the pipeline, pre-date the tour, and the evidence is thus overwhelmingly clear: these tours are nothing but a public tamasha at public expense.

It is a fit case for an enlightened citizen to file a PIL and bring our mealy mouthed leaders to their senses. Indeed, if they are so passionate about enriching their knowledge about development, they are free to pursue their passion with their own money. When the ordinary citizen has to take care of even the basic needs of life all by himself - like education, sustenance, job, housing - why should our public representatives not be willing to be pay for their mostly private pleasures of an overseas trip? As it is, our MLAs and Ministers enjoy too many privileges that are neither good for their health nor ours!