Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday fact-checked a news report, dismissing speculations that the Centre was mulling a tax or surcharge on foreign travel, and stating that there was "not an iota of truth" in them.
This is a rare move from the Centre, as it usually uses its two fact-checking arms on social media—PIB Fact Check and MEA Fact Check—for this purpose.
"There is no question of putting such restrictions on foreign travel. We remain committed to improving ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and ‘Ease of Living’ for our people," he added in the post.
He had been responding to a post from CNBC-TV18, which claimed that such a proposal to levy taxes on foreign travels was being discussed at the highest levels of the government.
The surcharge, which would likely flow directly to the Centre as per the alleged proposal, was aimed at cushioning the fiscal impacts of the war in the Gulf, which is well past its third month.
Notably, the report had also claimed that the alleged surcharge would be levied only for a year, and that no final decision had been taken on the proposal yet.
This comes amid a series of austerity appeals that PM Modi recently made to the general public, one of which was reducing unnecessary foreign trips to limit foreign exchange amid the West Asia crisis.
However, he had also proposed domestic trips as an alternative, and had not made any mention of a possible foreign travel tax at any point.
PM Modi had also urged citizens to reduce fuel consumption, prioritise public transport, to increase work from home wherever possible, and advised people not to buy gold at this time, as it took a lot of foreign exchange to import the precious metal.