The cost of Manmohan Singh's foreign trips: Rs 620 cr over nine years

The Prime Minister’s office on Friday disclosed Manmohan Singh’s foreign trip expenses since he became Prime Minister nine years ago as Rs 620 crores. This is to create transparency under section 4 of the RTI Act, 2005. The website lists 67 trips of which they have received bills for 64. While Singh’s first trip was to Bangkok in July 2004, his last listed trip was to Germany in April 2013. [caption id=“attachment_853807” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Manmohan Singh. AFP[/caption] The website has revealed the break up of Singh’s salary and his allowances. His pay for the month is Rs 50,000, sumptuary allowance is Rs 3,000, daily allowance is Rs 2,000 and constituency allowance is Rs 45,000. Singh’s total salary amounts to Rs 1,60,000 per month. Section 4 of the RTI act states, “Every public authority shall maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and the form which facilitates the right to information under this Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerised are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated” The information was revealed after a huge controversy erupted in March 2012 over the fact that Pratibha Patil’s foreign trips cost the public exchequer a whopping Rs 205 crore, surpassing the record of all her predecessors. A series of RTI applications had revealed that it cost Air India over Rs 169 crore for the use of chartered aircraft, always a Boeing 747-400, on Patil’s foreign visits. She was mostly accompanied by her family members on these tips. A smaller jet was used for her visit to Bhutan. A further sum of nearly Rs 36 crore has been incurred by the Ministry of External Affairs on accommodation, local travel, daily allowance and “miscellaneous” expenses, according to the information provided by the ministry. The RTI applications were filed over a period of three years during which the authorities concerned showed great reluctance to reveal information.