42% Of The Prime Minister's Cabinet Colleagues Travelled Abroad In The First 9 Months

The members of the Union Cabinet spent a total of 393 days in foreign visits. More than 42% of the Union Cabinet made foreign visits in the first 9 months of the NDA government. Most of these visits were made for bilateral and multilateral summits.

countries union cabinet

One of the major talking points in the first year of the NDA Government has been the extensive foreign travel undertaken by the Prime Minister. While a lot has been written and said about the foreign visits undertaken by the Prime Minister, there is little written about his Cabinet colleagues. Factly compiled data about the foreign travel undertaken by the members of the Cabinet from May 2014 to March 2015. Twenty seven (27) of Modi’s Cabinet colleagues undertook at least one foreign visit. This is about 42% of the total strength of the Union Cabinet.

Countries Visited

A total of sixty (60) countries were visited by at least one member of the Union Cabinet. All of them together spent 393 days abroad. Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Six(6) of his cabinet colleagues visited at least five countries. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs Gen. (Dr) V K Singh (Retd), MoS for Petroleum & Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari, Mos for Environment Prakash Javdekar & MoS for Commerce & Industry Nirmala Sitharaman visited at least five countries.

Purpose of Such Visits

Many of them travelled abroad for bilateral & multilateral summits. They also travelled abroad for BRICS Summit, G-20 related meetings, attending World Economic Forum, SAARC meetings, World Congress & Asia meetings on various issues etc. Seven of the ministers undertook foreign travel for private visits.

The details of the visits by the members of the Union Cabinet are in the table below.

S No	Name of the Minister	Portfolio	Number of Countries Visited	Number of Days	Purpose
1	Shri Narendra Modi	Prime Minister	18	54	Bi-lateral, Multi Lateral Summits
2	Smt Sushma Swaraj	External Affairs	18	52	Bi-lateral, Multi Lateral Summits
3	Gen. (Dr) V K Singh (Retd)	External Affairs (MoS)	11	25	Bilateral Talks & Other Events
4	Shri Dharmendra Pradhan	Petroleum and Natural Gas(MoS)	5	14	World Petroleum Congress,TAPI Gas Pipeline,World Petroleum Congress
5	Shri Nitin Gadkari	Road Transport and Highways	5	12	Nepal Summit, Bi-lateral Meetings, Private Visit (Sweden)
6	Shri Prakash Javadekar	Environment, Climate Change, Information & Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs (MoS)	5	26	United Nations meeting, Major Economic Forum, Climate Change Summit,UN Conference on Climate Change
7	Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman	Commerce & Industry (MoS)	5	23	BRICS Summit, G-20, Bi-lateral meetings, Accompanied Vice President of India
8	Shri Harsha Vardhan	Health and Family Welfare (Earlier)	4	17	Global Meets of Health Ministers & World Conferences
9	Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu	Parliamentary Affairs, Urban Development & Housing and Urban Poverty Alleivation	4	18	Leader of Parliamentary Delegation, Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference, Smartcity Expo World Congress
10	Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar	Textiles, Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation	4	14	Goodwill delegation of Parliamentarians
11	Shri Suresh Prabhu	Railways	4	11	Private Visit (Moscow), G-20 Meetings, 13thAnnual Flagship Conference India Unlimited
12	Shri Rajnath Singh	Home Minister	3	8	SAARC & Bi-lateral meetings
13	Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad	Communications and Information Technology and Law & Justice	3	9	Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) ICT Ministerial meeting,International Telecommunication Union (ITU) meeting
14	Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal	Food Processing Industries	3	18	Private Visit (Italy & UAE), SIAL Fair 2014
15	Shri Arun Jaitley	Finance	2	16	Annual BRICS Meeting, G-20, World Economic Forum, Private Visit (USA)
16	Shri Kalraj Mishra	Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises	2	7	Interactive Business Sessions, Inauguration of Vocational Training with GOI Support
17	Shri Narendra Singh Tomar	Mines, Steel, Labour & Employment	2	8	G-20 meeting & “MINING INDABA 2015”
18	Shri P Radhakrishnan	Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises(MoS)	2	6	Accompanied the President of India
19	Shri Anant Geete	Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises	1	2	Annual Indian Investment Forum
20	Shri Birender Singh	Rural Development	1	9	AARDO Conference
21	Shri Inderjit Singh	Planning,Statistics and Programme Implementation and Defense (MoS)	1	6	Private Visit (Spain)
22	Shri Jayant Sinha	Finance (MoS)	1	5	G-20 meeting
23	Shri Kiren Rijiju	Home Affairs (MoS)	1	6	Asian Ministerial Conference on various issues
24	Shri Manoj Kumar Sinha	Railways (MoS)	1	10	Private Visit (USA)
25	Shri Piyush Goyal	Power, Coal and NRE (MoS)	1	3	World Economic Forum
26	Shri. Gowdara Mallikarjunappa Siddeswara	Civil Aviation(MoS)	1	6	Private Visit (USA)
27	Shri. Shripad Yesso Naik	AYUSH and Health and Family Welfare (MoS)	1	4	Ministerial segment of 83rd General Assembly of IMTERPOL
28	Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi	Women & Child Development	1	4	Asian and Pacific Conference on ‘Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

Source: Unstarred Question No 3678, answered on 18^th March, 2015 in the Lok Sabha, Ministry of External Affairs.

This article has been republished from Factly.in.

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