13 May 2026 – Days after urging citizens to save fuel, avoid unnecessary foreign travel and defer gold purchases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has issued instructions to reduce the size of his official convoy by 50 per cent. The Special Protection Group has been given instructions in this regard and has already begun implementing them. The move is widely framed as a symbolic signal to the entire government machinery that austerity is no longer rhetoric — it begins at the top.
After Modi’s call, the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and other states announced steps to reduce official vehicle use and promote public transport, carpooling, and revive COVID-era measures like work-from-home and virtual meetings. The PM’s austerity call — cut fuel use, avoid foreign travel, postpone gold purchases, switch to electric vehicles, and embrace “Vocal for Local” — is being projected as a national economic response to the spiralling geopolitical crisis in West Asia. India’s gold import bill and crude oil vulnerability have sharpened concerns in North Block about the foreign exchange reserve position, and Modi’s moves are being read as a signal that fiscal tightening may be imminent.
