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Manmohan Singh Spent 699 crores in 10 years while Vajpayee spent 144 crores in 5 years on Foreign Visits

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Foreign Visits by the Prime Minister has been a subject of discussion especially after the Narendra Modi led BJP Government came to power. Amidst this, the information disclosed by the Prime Minister’s office reveals that the expenses incurred on foreign visits of former Prime Ministers A B Vajpayee was more than Rs 144 crore (in 5 years) while that of Manmohan Singh was more than Rs 699 crore (in 10 years)

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Foreign Visits by the Prime Minister has been a subject of discussion especially after the Narendra Modi led BJP Government came to power. But little information was forthcoming about the expenses incurred on such visits. In a welcome move, the Union Government has now put in the public domain, the expensed incurred on foreign visits by former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh & A B Vajpayee. It must be also be noted that this is not a new initiative. In 2012, the UPA government had asked all the ministries to proactively disclose the details of official tours of Ministers & high ranking officials.

Prime Minister Foriegn Visit Expenditure 1

Based on the information available on the PM’s website, more than 699 crore rupees were spent in 10 years on chartered flights for Manmohan Singh’s foreign visits, while more than 144 crore rupees were spent in 5 years on chartered flights for A B Vajpayee’s foreign visits. Details of expenses incurred on 5 visits undertaken by Manmohan Singh from September 2013 are still being processed and are not available. Expenses incurred on Narendra Modi’s foreign visits are still not available except for his Bhutan visit in June 2014. An amount of 2.45 crore rupees were spent on his Bhutan visit.

How many countries did Manmohan Singh & A B Vajpayee Visit?

Name of the former PMTermNumber of Countries VisitedNumber of days spent in Foreign Visits
A B VajpayeeNDA 1 (1999-2004)31131
Manmohan SinghUPA 1 (2004-2009)35144
Manmohan SinghUPA 2 (2004-2009)38161
(Explanation: If a specific country is visited twice, it is counted as two visits)

Mr. A B Vajpayee spent a total of 131 days in foreign visits and visited 31 countries in his 5 year term while Mr. Manmohan Singh spent 144 days in foreign visits and visited 35 countries during his first term. In his second term, he spent 161 days in foreign visits and visited 38 countries. Both Vajpayee & Manmohan Singh spent maximum time visiting Asia followed by North America. Vajpayee spent 38% of the time visiting Asia while Manmohan Singh also spent about 39% time visiting Asia during his first term. In his second term, Manmohan Singh spent half the time visiting Asian Countries.

Prime Minister Foriegn Visit Number of days 2

Amount Spent on Foreign Visits

The expenses on foreign visits of the Prime Minister are met out of the budget head “Cabinet Ministers – Foreign Travel Expenses” (Demand No. 54). The expenses incurred are on chartered flights for these foreign visits.

The total amount during Vajpayee’s term on foreign visits was Rs 144.43 crore. On the other hand, Manmohan Singh’s foreign visits costed a total of Rs 301.95 crore in his first term and Rs 397.35 crore in his second term. Though the number of countries visited and the number of days spent in foreign visits was not very different, the expenses incurred during Manmohan Singh’s first term were more than twice the expenses incurred during Vajpayee’s term as the Prime Minister between 1999 and 2004.

Prime Minister Foriegn Visit Amount Spent 3

Average Amount spent per day of Visit & per Country

Prime Minister Foriegn Visit Amount Spent 4

During Vajpayee’s term, an average of Rs 1.1 crore was spent per day of foreign visit while Rs 4.7 crore was spent per country of visit. These amounts doubled during Manmohan Singh’s first term with Rs 2.1 crore spent per day of visit and Rs 8.6 crore spent per country of visit. During Manmohan Singh’s second term, Rs 2.9 crore was spent per day of visit and Rs 12.8 crore was spent per country of visit.

Prime Minister Foriegn Visit Amount Spent 5

Most Expensive & Least Expensive Visit

Prime Minister Foriegn Visit Amount Spent 6

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About Author

Rakesh has been working on issues related to Right to Information (RTI) for a decade. He is a Data/Information enthusiast & passionate about Governance/Policy issues.

9 Comments

  1. A B Vajpayee’s Foreign Visits’ cost must be calculated on the basis of inflation. In 1999-2004 inflation were low compared to current inflation. If you search highest earned movie or highest budgeted movie. you can find as per the inflation data also. India’s First PM may be visited foreign countries and that figures are too small. So if you want to compare two PM’s Foreign visit budget you must calculate on the basis of inflation. Otherwise this data may be misguide.

  2. Agree with Savan. Was going to ask if this has been adjusted for inflation. If not, this could be misleading. Would also be very interesting to see foreign trips vs outcomes (major agreements / investments)

    • True. But we did not want to get into subjective analysis of adjusting for inflation etc since it would there is a level of subjectivity involved. Government unfortunately does not often release data/information about the outcomes of such visits. They do list the agreements made, but that is of little use because many of them take years and dont even take off.

  3. Pingback: PM Modi’s 16 Foreign Trips Cost Rs 37 Crores, Reveals RTI Query | moomblr!

  4. I don’t understand the point here.
    Are u suggesting that Vajpayee spent so little and manmohan Singh spent too large a sum of money on foreign visits?

    Or is it just the info u gathered and presented it without drawing any conclusions.

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