Babu takes fly members to USA on official trip, Congress livid

the goan I network
PANAJI
The Goa Congress on Thursday accused Tourism Minister Manohar “Babu” Ajgaonkar of using officially sponsored “tourism promotion” roadshows as an excuse to take his family members along and have questioned why four persons of the Ajgaonkar family also accompanied the official delegation for the tourism promotion roadshow.  
Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Amarnath Panjikar pointed out that Dr Srikanth Ajgaonkar, a government employee of the ESIC Hospital, Reshmi Ajgaonkar, an employee of the Excise Department and two others -- Megha Ajgaonkar and Mitha Ajgaonkar were part of the delegation that went to America.  
While pointing out that the entire tour was organised by the same event management company for all the official and family members alike and the tickets were booked together, Panjikar accused the Minister of “having fun” at the cost of the state exchequer.  
“We demand that one year’s statement of accounts of the event management firm be made public. The tourism department should come clean over how many tickets were booked and how many hotel rooms were booked and paid for by the government,” Panjikar said.  
He also asked the tourism minister to come clean on how much they have spent for the entire trip, and how much Goa would stand to gain from a trip as far off as the USA which gives as little as less than 2% of the total foreign tourists who come to visit the state.  
“Back when Pratapsingh Rane was CM, he had stopped promotion shows to the USA because they do not send tourists to Goa,” Panjikar said.