From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 36 foreign trips in the last five years cost a little more than Rs 239 crore to the exchequer, the government disclosed in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha by CPI-M member Elamaram Kareem.
National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval accompanied him in 29 of the foreign trips while most of the delegates in his trips were mostly ministers and high-ranking officials.
“The objective of the Prime Minister’s visits abroad has been to foster closer relations with the foreign countries and promote India’s engagements at the regional and global level,” Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said on Thursday.
He said these visits enhanced the understanding of India’s perspective on the regional and global issues among its foreign partners at the highest level. He was replying to the questions on the PM’s foreign trips, their outcome and details of the expenditure incurred.
“Understandings reached during these visits have enabled India to strengthen relations with partner countries and put forward India’s viewpoint and shape the global agenda on global issues such as reformed multilateralism, climate change, transnational crime, terrorism, cyber-security, etc,” he said.
He gave details of the composition of delegations accompanying the prime minister in each of the 36 trips while expenditure was provided for 31 visits.
According to the details, nine of the 36 trips involved Modi’s visits to two or more countries.
The minister said the expenditures on account of the prime minister’s visits to Bangladesh (March 26-27, 2021), the US (September 22-26, 2021), Italy and the UK (October 29 to November 2, 2021) were met from the budget head of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The expenditure incurred on these three visits are among the five trips whose expenses were not mentioned in the list. The other two were his visit to Bhutan in August 2019 and Nepal in May this year.
The total expenditure in the 31 trips comes to Rs 239,04,08,625, according to the details.
a maximum of Rs 23,27,09,000 was incurred on the prime minister’s visit to the US from September 21 to 28, 2019 while a minimum of Rs 23,86,536 was spent on his trip to Japan from September 26 to 28 this year.
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