Amazing atmosphere at the reception hosted by Indian High Commissioner in Colombo. PM is interacting with guests. pic.twitter.com/hxZRlJ6guv — PMO India (@PMOIndia) March 14, 2015

Chief Justice Kheshoe Parsad meets PM @narendramodi in Mauritius. pic.twitter.com/jGjKTX10tO — PMO India (@PMOIndia) March 12, 2015

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government in its inaugural year has incurred a travel bill of Rs 317 crore, according to the revised budgetary estimates. This is about Rs 59 crore more than the Rs 258 crore the UPA-II cabinet had spent in its last year in office (2013-14), but in keeping with UPA’s average spend on the head through its five year-term.This travel bill includes expenditure on travel by cabinet ministers, ministers of state and ex-PMs and maintenance of aircraft used by VVIPs: the ones used by Prime Minister, President and Vice President.Prime Minister Narendra Modi has traveled extensively in his first year in office, logging more flying miles than his ministers.The government does not see the travel spend coming down anytime soon as the 2015-16 budget has made a provision of Rs 269 crore.At Rs 14 crore, the salary and allowances bills of the 65-member Modi’s council of ministers have been almost the same as that of the 75-member UPA cabinet. The expenditure of the PMO, though, has gone up to Rs 40 crore in 2014-15, compared to Rs 31 crore of UPA’s last year in office.During five years (2009-14), UPA-II had spent almost Rs 1,500 crore on travel of its council of ministers and VVIPS. Since the financial meltdown of 2008-09, the central government has announced 10% mandatory cut on non-plan expenditure almost every year. But this has primarily been restricted to curbs on first class travel by bureaucrats and a cut on foreign delegations of union council of ministers and for organising conferences in 5-star hotels.Interestingly, the curb on first class travel by senior bureaucrats has been lifted every year in the second half of the fiscal.If the travel expenditure of officers are included, the travel bill of the government is almost double of what the council of ministers incurred. For instance, the UPA ministers and babus in 2011-12 picked up a travel bill running into more than Rs 1,000 crore. The travel expenditure of the council of ministers that year was Rs 679 crore, part of it accounting for dues cleared to Air India for previous years.As indicated by the budget documents, the travel bills of the council of ministers have consistently been going up every year, sometimes more than the rate of inflation. The regime change last year has not changed the pattern.