Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited 16 countries in 2024 but the Indian missions, barring those in Abu Dhabi and Moscow, are yet to provide details of expenditure incurred in organising the high-profile visits sought under Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The Embassy in Abu Dhabi has provided details for Modi’s February visit to UAE and the Embassy in Moscow has provided information about the Prime Minister’s two visits to Russia in July and October last year.
Modi had visited UAE and Qatar between February 13 and 15 last year. Of this, the Embassy in Abu Dhabi has said in response to a RTI query filed by transparency activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retired) that the Mission has incurred an expenditure of Rs 4.95 crore.
It also said a community interaction event ‘Ahlan Modi’ was organised by the Indian diaspora in UAE.
Modi visited Russia twice in 2024. His first trip to Russia was in July, which was clubbed with Austria, and the second one was in October and the Embassy in Moscow incurred an expenditure of Rs 15.36 crore.
In the July tour, the Indian mission spent Rs 5.12 crore while it was Rs 10.24 crore in the second trip.
Batra claimed he had filed RTI queries in Indian missions seeking expenditure incurred by them for Prime Minister’s visits in 2024 towards end November-end and early December last year.
“It is strange that many of the missions which had provided me information on similar RTIs in 2015 are now denying information which is supposed to be in the public domain under proactive disclosures,” he added.