Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited a whopping number of 84 countries in his 42 trips since he took over the prime ministership with a landslide victory in May 2014. His first ever visit to a foreign country was Bhutan, with the last being China recently.
His foreign tours have always been a matter of buzz on the social networking sites. His embraces with the heads of other countries have always taken to front pages. Opposition have time and again questioned Modi’s foreign visits as they fail to notice the purpose of such tours. They repeatedly ask how much money has been spent on his visits and what benefits does it serve the nation?
The Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh revealed the answer to a part of question in the Rajya Sabha yesterday. He said that Rs 1,484 Crore have been spent on Narendra Modi’s foreign travels since June 2014.
He said that a total Rs 1088.42 Crore were spent on maintenance of aircrafts, Rs 387.26 Cr on chartered flights and Rs 9.12 Cr on hotline services from 15 June 2014 to 10 June 2018.
The cost for chartered flights to overseas destinations in 2014-15 was Rs 93.76 crore while in 2015-16, it was Rs 117 crore. In 2016-17, the cost was Rs 76.27 crore and in 2017-18, the expense on chartered flight was Rs 99.32 crore.
Singh also mentioned that Modi visited 13 countries in 2014-15, 24 countries in 2015-16, 18 countries in 2016-17 and 19 countries in 2017-18.