The government has incurred an expenditure of Rs 446.52 crore on the foreign visits of Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi in the last five years.
Union minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan gave a year-wise figure for the five years in response to a Lok Sabha question by Bahujan Samaj Party member of Parliament (MP) from Bijnor, Malook Nagar, on Wednesday,
The amount is set to rise further as bills for all the PM’s visits in 2019-20 are yet to come in, Muraleedharan added.
Data shows that the highest expenditure of Rs 121.85 crore was incurred for the PM’s foreign travels in 2015-16 and the lowest in 2016-17 at Rs 78.52 crore.
In 2017-18 and 2018-19, Rs 99.90 crore and Rs 100.02 crore, respectively, was spent. In 2019-20, Rs 46.23 crore was set aside, the minister said.
He added that the figure included expenditure on chartered flights and hotline costs. The ministry of external affairs has listed 59 visits by Modi after he became the Prime Minister in May 2014. He is scheduled to attend the India-European Union Summit in Brussels on March 13.