While carrying out a campaign to get the shattered half-a-kilometre East Jail Road repaired, The Telegraph found that the Ranchi Municipal Corporation could not manage a meagre Rs 12 lakh in 2005 to repair the busy stretch that links Circular Road and H.B. Road.

RMC officials hope they would get this stretch, dotted with treacherous trenches and potholes that invariably suck in vehicles causing accidents and injuries, not to mention the traffic snarls, repaired during the current fiscal. The authorities pointed out that the government could not spare the amount to repair this road in the heart of the city, which thousands of people use, last year due to a funds crunch. There are many other roads in and around the capital which are in worse condition causing immense suffering to commuters but the government is not repairing them, the excuse being the same ?funds crunch?.

Officials, when quizzed, dutifully parrot that the Arjun Munda government is unable to repair the roads, ensure drinking water to the people residing in the state?s first city and rural areas, and provide irrigation facilities in the rain-shadowed Palamau and Garhwa districts due to a ?funds crunch?.

But it is hard to buy the argument given that the chief minister led all his ministers and MLAs on a pleasure and pilgrimage trip to Rajasthan via Delhi on a chartered flight.

That too in the closing days of March, the busiest time for any government.

Sources in the airlines say the 50-seat chartered flight, which ferried Munda and his friends from Ranchi to Delhi and brought them back from Jaipur to Ranchi alone would have cost over Rs 30 lakh. Besides, the delegation enjoyed five-star facilities and travelled in air-conditioned luxury buses from Delhi to Jaipur and from there to Pushkar in Ajmer. All this would have pushed up the travel bill by a few more lakhs.

Who, pray, paid for this lavish trip of the chief minister, finance minister and other functionaries of the establishment which suffers from a ?funds crunch? to fulfil its basic commitments to the people?

What shocks the senses is that no one in the government or in the ruling party is even ready to say from where the chief minister arranged such a huge amount of money for the trip.

?I don?t know about the expenses of this trip,? is the cryptic reply of civil aviation and home secretary J.B. Tubid. Officials of Deccan Aviation, which flew the team, refused to divulge who had paid for the flight. The state BJP too says the party is not aware about the expenses.

The chief minister himself brazened it out when he was asked. ?If necessary?, Munda said on Tuesday, the government would bear the expenses.

Mr chief minister, the people who have elected you have the right to know about the expenses of their MLAs, some of whom are ministers, when they travel, more so when they go on a pilgrimage. Mr chief minister, you also parry the question whether your trip was official or sponsored by the party. Why? When asked repeatedly, you grudgingly told us over phone, ?The cost of the trip will be borne by the government, if necessary.? What do you mean by ?if necessary??

Recently, Parliament passed the Right to Information Act arming the people with the right to know about activities and expenses of the government they have elected.

I am unable to understand how the chief minister and his officers evade the queries related to this trip?s expenses. On behalf of the people, I wish to know if there is any judiciary or any other constitutional authority to make the chief minister, his ministers and the officers concerned to explain to the people the expenses borne on the trip.