Rs. 676 Crore was spent on the 36 foreign visits of Manmohan Singh
1 May, 2015Reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that an amount of Rs 676 Crore was spent on the foreign visits of the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh between May 2004 and March 2013. As per the reply received by Daniel Jesudass from the Prime Minister’s Office, Manmohan Singh visited 36 countries during his tenure as the prime minister.
According to the RTI reply, the Prime Minister’s Office said the government incurred the humongous expense on Manmohan’s overseas visits between May 2004 and March 2013. Some of the important visits of Manmohan Singh and the cost to the exchequer are as under:-
· Visit Bangkok between July 29 and July 31, 2004 costed Rs 5,38,95,000.
· Brazil, Cuba between Sep 10-18, 2006 costed Rs 15.6 Crore
· UN, US, France between Sep 22 The provisions of this Act shall have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent therewith contained in the Official Secrets Act, 1923 (19 of 1923), and any other law for the time being in force or in any instrument having effect by virtue of any law other than this Act. and October 1, 2008 costed Rs 24.1 Crore
· Italy between July 7-10, 2009 costed Rs 14.5 Crore
· Russia between June 15-17, 2009 costed Rs 13.4 Crore
· Mexico and Brazil between June 16-23, 2012 costed Rs 26.9 Crore
· South Africa in March 2013 costed Rs 10,94,79,000
The applicant intends to approach the PMO again to ascertain whether the overseas visits were beneficial.