Planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia may blush that he was clocking expenses of Rs 2.02 lakh a day on his official foreign trips last year when his organisation filed an affidavit in the supreme court setting the poverty line at Rs 32 a day in cities and towns and Rs 26 a day in villages.

In response to an RTI application by a Delhi daily's reporter, the plan panel disclosed that Ahluwalia made four foreign trips covering 18 nights in six months from May to October last year costing the exchequer a sum of Rs 36,40,140, which turns out to Rs 2.02 lakh a day.

The reply stresses that "all the visits...were undertaken after obtaining the permission of the prime minister and following the prescribed procedure." Montek's itinerary included nine nights in the US, China and France, seven nights in Cannes, France and Cambridge and one night each in Seoul and Paris.

Just a day's trip to Paris on July 21 to attend a meeting of the G20 meet cost the exchequer Rs 4,94,940.

The Statesman reporter, who culled the information through RTI, states that even if he had travelled first class and stayed at Ritz that costs Rs 48,777, the expenses should have been about Rs 2.50 lakh. But the commission's figure of Rs 4,94,940 only suggests that there were other undisclosed expenses on his one-day trip.