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New Delhi: The expenses incurred on chartered flights during foreign trips of PM Narendra Modi, from June 15, 2014 till September 8, 2016, amount to nearly Rs 275 crore, according to government data.
PM Modi’s nine-day trip to France, Germany and Canada amounted over Rs 31 crore, making it his costliest travel. Furthermore, Indian Air Force BBJ aircraft was used for several foreign trips.
The expenses on foreign tours of the Prime Minister are met out of the budget head “Cabinet Ministers — Maintenance of PM’s aircraft — Other charges” under Demand No. 47. The expense mentioned is the one incurred on the chartered flight.
While the Prime Minister has been travelling on an ageing Boeing 747 so far, Air India One’s aircraft will be upgraded to a state-of-the art Boeing 777-300, media reports.
As per the information available till June 2013, former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s air travel expense was calculated to be over Rs 642 crore in his nine-year tenure since 2004.
The Right to Information revealed that Singh undertook 67 travels since 2004 when he took over as the prime minister, of which bills of five have not been received. The bills received from the rest 62 visits show that Rs 642.45 crore was spent on air travel.
The RTI revealed that the maximum expenditure of Rs 26.94 crore was incurred on his seven-day long visit to Mexico and Brazil in 2012 to attend G20 Summit and Rio+20 Summit respectively.
Expenses incurred on chartered flights of some of PM’s foreign trips (Full list available on PMO):
Bhutan – June 2014 – Rs 2.45 crore
Brazil – July 2014 – Rs 20.35 crore
Myanmar, Australia and Fiji – November 2014 – Rs 22.58 crore
China, Mongolia and South Korea – April 2015 – Rs 15.15 crore
Ireland and USA – September 2015 – Rs 18.46 crore
Belgium, USA and Saudi Arabia – April 2016 – Rs 15.85 crore
Vietnam and China – September 2016 – Rs 9.53 crore
