New Delhi:
A sum of over Rs 642 crore has been incurred on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's air travels abroad in the last nine years.
This information has been made public by the PMO under the mandatory proactive disclosure clause of the Right to Information Act.
The information reveals that Dr Singh undertook 67 trips since 2004 when he took over as Prime Minister. Of these, five bills have not yet been submitted. The bills received from the rest show that Rs 642.45 crore was spent on air travel.
The Central Information Commission, in a recent order, had directed the Cabinet Secretariat to make public expenses incurred on the travel of ministers and VVIPs because of "large public interest" in the matter.
"We have been noticing a lot of public interest in the visit of such high dignitaries as the President, the Vice President and the Prime Minister of India. Quite often, one comes across RTI applications seeking similar information about these visits," Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Satyananda Mishra had said.
The information accessed by PTI last year had revealed that former President Pratibha Patil had spent Rs 223 crore on her visits abroad during her five years which triggered a debate on expenditure over VIP visits.
The list of the Singh's visits shows maximum expenditure of Rs 26.94 crore was incurred on his seven-day long visit to Mexico and Brazil in 2012 to attend G20 Summit and Rio+20 Summit respectively.
This was followed by Rs 22.70 crore spent on air travel to Washington DC, USA and Brazil in 2010 where he had gone to attend the Nuclear Security Summit, BRIC Summit and IBSA Summit.