CM Devendra Fadnavis’ Air travel amounts to almost ₹6 crore in a year

In a petition rendered by RTI activist Anil Galgali, the Chief Minister's Secretariat has informed that a total of ₹6 crore has been spent on the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ air journey in a year. In fact, this expenditure has increased in the last few days due to the disturbances in the Chief Minister's helicopter.

According to information received from the Chief Minister's Secretariat: 

• ₹5.37 crores spent in the financial year 2014-15
• Expenditure of ₹5.42 crores in 2015-16
• In the financial year 2016-17, ₹7.23 crore were spent
• Expenditure of ₹6.13 crores in May 2017

After the helicopter incident, Maharashtra government started renting the helicopter for the Chief Minister. This led to an expenditure of ₹6.13 crore to pay the helicopter’s rent. 

The state government has its own helicopters too but due to the lack of pilots, the helicopters were not available to fly for a year. Due to the same, the government spent almost ₹13.24 crore to rent or take the helicopters on contract. 

A new process to buy helicopters has already started and a committee has been formed to maintain transparency in this entire process.