There's more on July (2006) and it's enough to constipate you. But for now remember that Rs 1,02,740 was spent gorging in July of that year. Don't you wish some of these restaurants especially the many at the Cidade de Goa, or O' Coqueiro and Sher-e-Punjab were government owned, just so that some of the profit pennies filter back to you? In the business pages they call it dividends. Not happening!

No dividends here

Like 9/11, July will be a month to remember for the devastating effect on your tax rupees.  Only there were no terrorists involved, it was your friendly neighbourhood politician who was involved.  The good doctor (Wilfred D’Souza, whose flights within India and abroad I researched cost Rs 22,89,428 -Feb 2005-Aug 2007) and Narvekar (flight cost: Feb 2000-Mar 2007 Rs 14,94,884) spent a total of Rs 57,726 entertaining the ruling MLAs on July 12, 17 and 24.  On July 25 Digambar Kamat (flight cost: Jan 2000-Jan 2005 Rs 11,40,395) threw a Rs 28,814 lunch for his ministers and MLAs at O 'Coqueiro. 

On July 31 Pratapsing Rane (flight cost: Feb 2005-Apr 2006 Rs 14,57,354) hosted a Rs 16,200 lunch for ministers and MLAs at his fav Sher-e-Punjab. These are expenses of ministers I have covered so far. There's more on July and it's enough to constipate you. But for now remember that Rs 1,02,740 was spent gorging in July of that year. Don't you wish some of these restaurants especially the many at the Cidade de Goa, or O' Coqueiro and Sher-e-Punjab were government owned, just so that some of the profit pennies filter back to you? In the business pages they call it dividends. Not happening!

Mea Culpa

My apologies, I should have pointed this out last week, but all this gorging on my tax money slowed down the brain functions to the extent I forgot to mention this bit of appetizing fact. Dadoo's (see table below) dinosaur dining habits made him spend Rs 1,20,850 on a single banquet for Kiran Dhingra, an upright chief secretary, perhaps the only one Goa ever had and known for her austerity (read as: refused to sanction corruption) and therefore transferred out by Pratapsing Rane. I find that curious because Dhingra's (definitely not a foodie) dinner cost more than what was spent on her entire Goa stint as you will see from the facts below. My point if you haven't cottoned on yet is that every politician and bureaucrat with fatted appetites must be attending these al fresco freebies. Only Narvekar cared to entertain your lowly sarpanch and panch spending Rs 1,05,605.

The government's food bill (and growing) so far:

Digambar Kamat Rs 36,47,744

Pratapsing Rane Rs 39,72,941

Manohar Parrikar Rs 12,05,515

Vishwajit Rane Rs 84,788

Alexio Sequeira Rs 1,03,590

J P Singh, IAS Rs 16,61,290

DS Negi, IAS Rs 4,25,683

Vijay Madan, IAS Rs 58,223

Kiran Dhingra, IAS Rs 1,54,375

JK Dadoo Rs 2,53,271

Total Rs1,15,67,420

Period researched is April 2004 to 2007.