President Pratibha Patil's desire to travel overseas has cost the public exchequer as much as Rs 205 crore,exceeding the expenditure recorded by all her predecessors so far. Patil , India 's first woman President, took over the office in July 2007. Since then, Patil has covered 22 countries, across four continents, in 12 trips. While the President still has four months to go to complete her five-year tenure, she has scheduled a trip to South Africa , later this year.
Air India , which has billed the Defence Ministry, which reimburses Air India for using chartered aircraft for the President, for over Rs 169 crore for usage of aircraft by Patil, so far has been reimbursed nearly Rs 153 crore. The remaining Rs 16 crore is still said to be unpaid.
In addition, the Ministry of External Affairs has incurred nearly Rs 36 crore after Patil's accommodation, local travel, daily allowance and "miscellaneous" expenses.
According to a series of right to information (RTI) applications, Patil's foreign trip has costed over Rs 169 crore to Air India , on use of chartered aircraft. The RTI applications have also revealed that in her foreign tours, Patil always travelled by Boeing 747-400. However her visit to Bhutan was covered by a smaller jet. Reports suggest in most of her overseas trips, Patil was accompanied by her family members.
The Ministry of Defence was not very comfortable in giving away RTI queries, and did not provide much information.
Reports say that Patil has travelled to Brazil , Bhutan , Vietnam , Cambodia , the UAE, Indonesia , Russia , Tajikistan , the UK , Cyprus , China , Laos , Mexico , Chile , Syria , Mauritius , South Korea , Spain , Poland , Switzerland and Austria in 79 days.
