08 September,2009 02:29 PM IST | | PTI
External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor are ready to vacate their luxury hotel rooms following Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's call for austerity.
"I have requested both the ministers to vacate the hotel rooms and go to their respective Bhavans where they have come from, where they have been elected," Mukherjee told reporters here.
He said both of them are ministers in the External Affairs Ministry, which has a guest block in the Hyderabad House. "They can occupy... and both of them have agreed to vacate hotel rooms today itself," he said.
The government had on Monday appealed to all the ministries to observe austerity in view of the pressure on its finances.
The Finance Ministry had also ordered a 10 per cent cut in non-plan expenditure by way of slashing foreign and domestic travel, publicity expenses and ban on conferences in five star hotels.
