PM Modi visits more than 50 countries
Several people had an opinion that PM Modi since his charge as the Prime Minister has been visiting too many foreign countries. Even the Opposition parties criticized that crores of money were spent in vain for the tours of the PM.
Do you know how many countries the Prime Minister visited so far? How much money was spent for it?
PM Modi visited more than 50 countries in 41 trips of his foreign tours for which an amount of ₹355 crores were spent. PM’s Recent China visit was his 42nd trip. He attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit there.
This information was provided by the PMO in response to Right to Information (RTI) query submitted by activist Bhimappa Gadad.
He wanted to know the actual facts about the foreign trips of the PM and there is no other intention behind this.
The highest money was spent from April 9 to 15, 2015 for a nine-day trip to France, Germany and Canada. The tour costed the exchequer ₹31.25 crore.
In his trip several key decisions were taken such as purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft, agreements on cybersecurity, and transportation. This tour also had driven ‘Make in India’ initiative.
The least expensive trip of the Prime Minister was to Bhutan on June 15 and 16, 2014. It costed the exchequer ₹2.45 crore. It was the first foreign trip of the Prime Minister.
Overall, PM Modi was abroad for 165 days. The PMO website reveals information till his Switzerland visit. It was made on 22-23 January this year. ₹13,20,83,000 was spent on this trip. These expenses were incurred on Chartered flight.
Earlier, Air India denied to provide information on the expenses incurred on Modi’s foreign tours stating that it had received an instruction from the PMO not to share.
Image credit: PM Modi meets Chandrakant Kulkarni image by Narendra Modi is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Image Reference: https://www.flickr.com/photos/narendramodiofficial/27553066093
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