Muzaffarabad, Jan 23: Helicopter jaunts by three former prime ministers of Pakistan administered Kashmir have cost more than Rs 32 million to the region’s taxpayers during July 2006 to July 2011, according to an official document.
 The information was revealed by the government in response to a question tabled by PML-N lawmaker Chaudhry Tariq Farooq in the Legislative Assembly secretariat, whereby he had sought details of chopper rides by the three premiers including year-wise allocated and additional budget for the purpose.
 It may be recalled that from July 2006 to July 2011, Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan held the office of Prime Minister for three and a half year, with an interval of 18 months during which he was succeeded by Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan and Raja Farooq Haider, respectively. Each held the coveted slot for nine months.
 Interestingly, the initial allocation of budget for all five years was Rs 9.75 million, but due to excessive use of helicopters the taxpayers had to bear an additional expense of Rs 22.73 million, taking the total expenditures to 32.489 million.
 According to details, Sardar Attique expended Rs 11.499 million on 51 rides during his first stint in office from July 2006 to January 2009. The total time duration of these trips was 87 hours.
 After staging a comeback to the same office in July 2010 and staying therein until the next 12 months, he used helicopters for a total of 115 hours in 50 trips at a cost of Rs 18.4 million. However, most of the columns about journey details were left blank in the document.
 Prime Minister Sardar Yaqoob enjoyed 7 chopper rides (15 hours) between February 26, 2009 and September 13, 2009, costing Rs 1.747 million.
 In his 9-month rule beginning October 2009, Haider made 6 rides of 8 hours, between February 13, 2010 and July 8, 2010, at a cost of Rs 904, 761.
 Haider told this correspondent that 2 trips were wrongly mentioned against his name as he had never flown from Islamabad to Ghaziabad (district Bagh) during his rule.

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