Jet set Modi: Govt spent ₹446.52 cr on PM's foreign visits in five years
The Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday (March 4) recorded a total expenditure of ₹446.52 crore on the foreign visits made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last five years.
The Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday (March 4) recorded a total expenditure of ₹446.52 crore on the foreign visits made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last five years.
While answering an unstarred question no. 2135 in the Lok Sabha, posed by Shri Malook Nagar, the External Affairs Minister V Muraleedharan said the expenditure on chartered flights and hotline costs of the Prime Minister in the financial year 2019-20 was ₹46.23 crore, the bills for some of which are yet to be received.
Since 2017, after the services of TCL for the hotline services were discontinued, PM Modi’s expenditure on foreign visits have been valued at ₹99.90 crore in FY17-18 and ₹100.02 crore in FY18-19.
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As for the figures from 2015-17, the total expenditure was worth ₹200.37 crore.
As of March 2020, the Prime Minister has made 59 foreign trips, visiting 60 countries including the visits to the United States of America to attend the United Nations General Assembly and to Asian countries, following his neighbourhood first and act east policies, however, excluding his visits for the multilateral meetings.
After taking charge as the Prime Minister of India in 2014, Narendra Modi visited nine countries with the most number of foreign visits (28) made in 2015.
From 2016 to date, PM Modi has visited 19 (2016), 15 (2017), 23 (2018), 15 (2019), and three (2020) countries respectively in every year.