New Delhi: Ever since assuming power as Prime Minister of the country, Narendra Modi has been travelling around the world in a bid to cultivate better international relations for India. In a recent report by NDTV, the PM visited 58 countries adding racking up a cost of a whopping Rs 517 crores.
The data was released by the government in response to a question raised in the Rajya Sabha.
Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said in a written response that Prime Minister Modi had visited the United States and Russia the most. He visited each of the two countries five times. PM Modi also visited China – with whom India is engaged in a serious border stand-off – five times, he added.
PM Modi, MoS Muraleedharan added, has also visited several other countries like Singapore, Germany, France, the United Arab Emirates, and Sri Lanka.
Confirming a report by PTI, the Muraleedharan said that the total expenditure of these visits was Rs 517.82 crores, adding that some visits were multi-national trips and while most of them were bilateral.
Emphasizing the purpose of these visits, Muraleedharan told the parliament that the visits were important to developing the Indian perspective on bilateral, regional, and global issues, NDTV reported.
He added that the visits were helpful in strengthening the country’s economic relations across a wide range of sectors, including trade and investment, technology, defence collaboration, and people-to-people contact.
The accuracy of the Union Minister’s data, however, has come into question. In 2018, the then Minister of State for External Affairs Vijay Kumar Singh revealed to TheWire that a cost of Rs 2,021 crores were incurred for chartered flights, maintenance of aircraft, and hotline facilities since June 2014.
It can be recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi previously faced a lot of backlash from the opposition for his expensive foreign travels, with the Congress claiming that PM Modi’s foreign trips have not benefited India “even a bit”.
Meanwhile, Muraleedharan revealed that the Prime Minister has not gone on any trips this year due to the pandemic situation.
