Rajkot civic body foots bill of Rs 75 L for AIIMS inauguration

The Rajkot Municipal Corporation reportedly spent over Rs 75 lakh — with expenditure on food packets and free bus rides — to gather the crowd for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public meeting in Rajkot on February 26 this year for the inauguration of AIIMS.

The RMC standing committee during its meeting on Wednesday gave its seal of approval to Rs 75.35 lakh spent by the civic body’s cultural development department for making arrangements for the PM’s “roadshow” on Race Course Ring Road in the city.

The expenditure included Rs 36,85,200 paid to Akash Caterers for purchasing 30,710 food packets; 15 lakh paid to Ashutosh Travels, Shree VM Tanti Foundation and Divine Tours for hiring 658 buses to ferry people to and fro, and Rs 19.95 lakh paid to G-Kids for customised T-shirts for the event.

According to the proposal green flagged by the standing committee, Akash Caterers charged Rs120 per food packet while G-Kids supplied T-shirts at Rs199.50 a piece.

The RMC paid Rs 5,000 and Rs 6,500 for hiring each of the 117 midi buses and 141 standard buses from private entities.

The RMC also paid Rs 1.15 lakh to one Tushar Pota for four cultural performances and Rs 24,000 to Teja Makwana for 20 Ravanhattha players who performed at the event.

The civic body also paid Rs 15000 to Royal Handicraft for a memento which was presented to the PM. The committee also approved Rs2 lakh contingency expenditure.