PM, ministers incurred Rs 393 cr travel expenditure

Prime minister Narendra Modi and his ministers have spent Rs 392.57 crore on their domestic and International trips.

This information has been provided to RTI Activist Anil Galgali by the Cabinet Affairs Pay & Accounts Department.

The major chunk of this expense has been incurred on International trips which have cost RS 292 crore, leaving aside 110 crores for domestic trips.

Galgali , who has been keeping a track on Modi government and his ministers through his RTI queries, had filed RTI query with the PMO requesting to provide total expenditure incurred on Foreign Travel Expenses (FTE) and Domestic Travel Expenses (DTE) by the prime minister Narendra Modi and his council of ministers since May 2014.

The reply of the RTI query found that Modi and his cabinet colleagues including Modi spent Rs 263 crore in five years on their foreign visits while Rs 48 crore were spent in their domestic visits. So far as state ministers are concerned, RTI reply further revealed that they incurred expenses of Rs 29 crore on foreign visits and Rs 53 crore on domestic visits.

Replying to his query, Satish Goyal, senior accounts officer of Pay & Accounts Office of the Cabinet Affairs, has stated that cumulative expenditure incurred on FTE and DTE by Modi and his council of ministers from the financial year 2014-15 to 2018-19 was Rs 393.58 crores.

Referring E-lekha reports, RTI has given separate expenditure of the cabinet ministers including the prime minister and the state ministers and according to it, cabinet ministers including prime minister spent Rs 311 crore while state ministers spent 82 crores on their foreign and domestic visits. Most of the money was spent in the year 2014-15, when Rs 88 crore was spent on Foreign travels by the PM and his cabinet colleagues.

In 2014- 15 cabinet ministers spent Rs 98.48 crores while state ministers spent Rs 11.28 crores. In 2015- 2016 cabinet ministers spent Rs 84.99 crores while state minister spent Rs 13.17 crores. In 2016- 2017 cabinet ministers spent Rs 45.51 crores while state ministers spent Rs 12.11 crores. In 2017- 2018 cabinet ministers 33.85 crores while state ministers spent Rs 17.79 crores. In 2018- 2019 cabinet ministers spent Rs 48.49 crores while state ministers spent Rs 27.83 crores.

"This information does not give full picture and therefore it is a half-hearted transparency. Government should keep all records of ministers' and their numbers of trips wise as well as their expenses wise information and all these be available on public domain by uploading it on websites, " said Galgali.