In his 48 months as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi made 41 trips to over 52 countries, at a total cost of Rs 355 crore. He was abroad for a cumulative 165 days.
According to the RTI reply, the government spent Rs 31,25,78,000 on Modi’s nine-day tri-nation visit to France, Germany and Canada, the highest amount spent on a single trip.
Gadad, who filed the RTI petition seeking details about expenses on PM’s foreign trips, said he filed it out of curiosity. “ A few years ago, I had applied for details of foreign visits by chief ministers of Karnataka. Recently, I was going through news reports wherein Prime Minister’s foreign visits were heavily criticized. Then I applied under RTI seeking details of PM’s foreign visits and I was really shocked to know the details,” he said.
Earlier, national carrier Air India had denied information on the expense incurred on Modi’s trips citing an instruction from the PMO to not share information related to the Prime Minister’s foreign visits. The Chief Information Commission had directed Air India to disclose complete records related to bills raised for the foreign visits.
He is bitter about the PMO not providing information on domestic travels of the Prime Minister. “They have not furnished details of domestic visits and expenses for security provided during the visits. I did not ask for details of security measures. I just asked for the expenses, but they refused, saying the SPG security organisation, which takes care of PM security, is exempted from the purview of RTI,” he said.
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