New Delhi: The Center disclosed the costs associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's international travel over the previous five years. According to information presented by the government in Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trips abroad over the past five years have cost just over Rs 239 crore. According to Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan, these trips have improved India's overseas partners' awareness of India's viewpoints on local and international issues.


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The goal of the prime minister's international trips, External Affairs V Muraleedharan said, "has been to promote India's engagements at regional and global level and to create deeper connections with foreign countries." Muraleedharan was responding to a query in the Rajya Sabha about the prime minister's trips, their results, and specifics of the costs associated with each of the visits over the previous five years.


According to the minister, such visits are crucial for India to advance its national interests and carry out its foreign policy goals. According to him, "understandings reached during these visits have enabled India to strengthen relations with partner nations, present India's viewpoint, and shape the global agenda on global issues such as reformed multilateralism, climate change, transnational crime, terrorism, cyber-security, etc.


Muraleedharan detailed Modi's visit beginning with his three-trip to the Philippines in November 2017 in his written response. He provided information on the makeup of the delegations that travelled with the prime minister on each of the 36 occasions, while costs were listed for 31 outings.


According to the specifics, nine of the 36 trips featured Modi visiting two or more nations.


The budget head of the Ministry of Home Affairs, according to the minister, covered the costs associated with the prime minister's trips to Bangladesh, March 26–27, 2021, the US, September 22–26, 2021, Italy, and the UK, October 29–November 2, 2021.


These three trips' expenses are among the five outings for which they weren't included in the list. The other two were his trips to Nepal in May this year and Bhutan in August 2019. According to the figures, Rs 239,04,08,625 was spent altogether on the 31 trips.


The records show that the prime minister spent a maximum of Rs 23,27,09,000 on his trip to the US from September 21 to September 28 of this year and a minimum of Rs 23,86,536 on his travel to Japan from September 26 to September 28 of this year.


(With inputs from PTI)