The Central government on Thursday (March 20) revealed that nearly Rs 258 crore was spent on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 38 foreign visits between May 2022 and December 2024. The highest expenditure for a single visit was incurred during the Prime Minister's trip to the United States in June 2023, which amounted to over Rs 22 crore. This information was shared by the Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs, Pabitra Margherita, in response to a query in the Rajya Sabha.
According to data shared by the government, over Rs 22 crore was incurred on the visit of PM Modi to the US in June 2023. Leader of Opposition in the Upper House Mallikarjun Kharge asked the government the total expenditure incurred by Indian embassies on arrangements for the prime minister's foreign visits in the past three years. He also asked for visit-wise details of expenses under major heads such as hotel arrangements, community receptions, transport arrangements and other miscellaneous expenditures among others.According to the data, an expenditure of Rs 22,89,68,509 was incurred on the visit of the prime minister to the US in June 2023, while the expenditure incurred was Rs 15,33,76,348 on the September 2024 visit to the same country.
The tabulated data pertained to 38 visits, from May 2022 visit to Germany to Kuwait visit in December 2024. According to the data related to the PM's Japan visit in May 2023, the expenditure incurred was Rs 17,19,33,356 while the same was Rs 80,01,483 on the Nepal visit in May 2022.
The minister in his response also shared some corresponding data for years prior to 2014.
"For reference purpose, expenditure on Prime Minister's foreign visits earlier were INR 10,74,27,363 (USA, 2011), INR 9,95,76,890 (Russia, 2013), INR 8,33,49,463 (France, 2011) and INR 6,02,23,484 (Germany, 2013). These figures show actual expenditure without adjusting for inflation or currency fluctuations," he said.