A study tour by the councillors of Kozhikode city corporation has invited mocking comments from the Kerala State Audit Department. The latest local fund audit report of Kozhikode city corporation for 2023-24 shows that the councillors toured North Indian states to study waste management, but their itinerary looked like that of a pleasure trip.

The state government sanctioned the trip in 2023 and 75 councillors were allowed to go on a study tour at ₹15 lakh. The council decision revealed that the councillors would travel in two batches to Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Himachal Pradesh from October 11 to 19. The plan was to go by train from Kozhikode to Amritsar and then take a flight back from Indore to Kozhikode. The first batch of 54 councillors went for the tour and came back. An additional amount of ₹2.79 lakh spent on flight fare was remitted into the corporation account.

The audit report pointed out that while the state government allocated ₹15 lakhs for the travel expense of 75 councillors, the first batch of 54 councillors has already spent ₹14.34 lakh. The corporation did not obtain prior sanction from the state government for the additional expense.

The audit noted that, although the trip was planned to study the functioning of offices, waste management, and urban administration, the quotation documents of the tour company that organised the trip showed visits to museums, temples, the Wagah border, the parliament, the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the Raj Ghat. The audit wondered over lack of any documents or even pictures in files on visit to urban local body offices in Amritsar, Delhi and Indore. It also said that any trip using public fund shall be followed up with a study report and it was not furnished by the councillors.

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"Waste management is a major issue in Kozhikode. The corporation was not able to envisage a new plan to solve the issue based on inputs gathered from the study tour," the audit report showed. The audit wing also sought an explanation from the corporation, for which no reply was given.

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