Meet Lucknow's former DM Anurag Yadav who spent over R 1 cr on fuel, electricity bills in a year

New Delhi/Lucknow: In a country where those who earn Rs. 33 a day are not considered as poor, bureaucrats spend crores of tax payers' money on their luxaries. Former Lucknow District Magistrate Anurag Yadav spent over Rs. 1 crore on fuel and electricity bills in one year. The 2000 batch IAS officer, who is the nephew of Ambika Chaudhary, a minister in the SP government, paid Rs. 75.10 lakh as the electricity bill of his office and residence in 2012-13, reveals an RTI reply accessed by Mail Today. Yadav spent Rs. 67.02 lakh on petrol and diesel expenses. In the very first year of his appointment as the Lucknow DM, he spent Rs. 4.96 lakh on telephone bills, the RTI queries, filed by city-based activist Sanjay Sharma, further reveals. In the very first year of his appointment as the Lucknow district magistrate, Yadav had also paid Rs. 11.60 lakh for miscellaneous expenses on his office, Rs. 4.96 lakh on telephone bills, Rs. 4.45 lakh on payment to labourers, Rs. 2.42 lakh on stationery, Rs. 1.08 lakh on furniture and Rs. 1.41 lakh on maintenance of computers. Notably, these expenses were 5 to 15 times more than what was spent by his predecessor and successor. Earlier, the maximum expenditure on electricity bill remained around Rs. 10 lakh, said the Mail Today report citing an official of the Lucknow DM office. Several attempts to contact Yadav, who was replaced with Allahabad District Magistrate Rajshekhar in February this year, failed as he did not pick up the call. Speaking to Daily Bhaskar, Smajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said, "It is a metter of investigation." But he denied to make any comment on whether his government in the state would order any probe. In September 2011, the Planning Commission had told the Supreme Court that anyone spending more than Rs. 965 per month in urban India and Rs. 781 in rural India will be deemed not to be poor. Updating the poverty line cut-off figures, the commission said those spending in excess of Rs. 32 a day in urban areas or Rs. 26 a day in villages will no longer be eligible to draw benefits of central and state government welfare schemes meant for those living below the poverty line.