PM Modi’s SPG Security Cover Costs Rs 1.62 Crore a Day

New Delhi, February 12, 2020:

The Union Budget has allocated a whopping Rs 592.5 crore for the Special Protection Group (SPG), the elite force that protects the lone protectee of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The information came to light after DMK parliamentarian Dayanidhi Maran sought the details of the current protectees under the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the SPG in India.

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It needs mention here that the elite SPG has received an increase of about ten per cent. In the 2019-20 budgetary allocation to SPG was Rs. 540.16 crore, a per capita cost of security cover at Rs 135 crore, that is, average cost of protecting the four VIPs, PM Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

At the current allocation of Rs 592 crore, the cost of SPG cover for PM Modi has increased to about a crore and above a day or about Rs 6.75 lakh an hour or Rs 11,263 a minute, as per reports.

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With PM Modi’s 93 foreign trips in ten years, the SPG cover cost has also increased. Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy said that security is provided on the basis of threat assessment by central security agency. It is subject to periodic review. Based on such review, the security cover is continued or modified, he added.

It may be mentioned here that the SPG came into force after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It was brought to protect her son Rajiv Gandhi (and immediate family), who was also the Prime Minister.

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