₹259cr spent on foreign visits: Who pays for Modi's trips
What's the story
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's foreign visits from May 2022 to December 2024 cost ₹258.9 crore, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
The expenses are mostly divided into five heads: accommodation, venue charges, security, transportation, and miscellaneous expenses.
The miscellaneous expenses were not defined. Accommodation topped the list with an expenditure of ₹104 crore.
Cost breakdown
Accommodation, miscellaneous expenses, and transportation
The rest of the expenses are accounted for by various expenses (₹75.7 crore) and transportation (₹71.1 crore).
These details were submitted by Pabitra Margherita, Minister of State for External Affairs, in a written answer to Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge's question in the Rajya Sabha.
The records include more than 38 overseas excursions, beginning with a visit to Germany in May 2022 and ending with a trip to Kuwait in December 2024.
Country-wise costs
Highest expenditure on US trips
The most money was spent on trips to the US (₹38.2 crore), Japan (₹33 crore), Germany (₹23.9 crore), Russia (₹16.1 crore), France (₹15.7 crore), Italy (₹14.4 crore), and UAE (₹12.7 crore).
The costliest trip during this period was a June 2023 visit to the US at ₹22.89 crore, while the cheapest was a May 2022 outing to Nepal at just ₹80 lakh.
Expenditure
Who pays for them
According to the PMO, the expenses on foreign visits of the PM are met from the budget of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
For domestic trips, the expenses are met out of the budget of the Ministry of Defense.
While the PMO keeps a public record of both his international and domestic trips, it only provides expense information for his international trips.
There is no publicly available information on Modi's domestic travel expenses or the official policy that oversees them.