Under the Reserve Bank of India s RBI's liberalized remittance scheme LRS, aiding international travel has already exceeded the FY 22 figure, which was the highest in any financial year.
The Reserve Bank of India RBI released its monthly bulletin for March, the data was $22.08 billion under the scheme during the April January period.
In January 2023 alone, the amount remitted overseas was $2.72 billion.
This is the highest amount deposited under the scheme in a month during the current financial year. In FY 22, Indians had remitted a little over $19.61 billion overseas under RBI's LRS scheme, which is an all-time high.
In FY 21, international travel was severely affected by the influenza-related restrictions that shut down international travel for a long time.
India's remittances stood at $12.68 billion in FY21, down 32.38 per cent from FY 20. In FY 20 the figure was $18.76 billion.
On a year-on-year YoY basis, outward remittances under the LRS in January were up 35.17 per cent.
International travel constituted over 55 per cent of the total outward remittances of Indians under the scheme, according to January data.
International travel remittances for international travel reached $1.49 billion, up 1.5 times from the same period in 2022. International travel was marred by Covid-related restrictions all over the world in 2021 and for some time in 2022. It picked up slowly towards the latter part of 2022.
After international travel, Indians spent most of their time on overseas education, followed by the maintenance of close relatives and gifts.
In January 2023, outward remittances by Indians under the scheme for overseas education were $395.87 million, according to data.
It was followed by $342.47 million for the maintenance of close relatives and $223.22 million as gifts.
Under the LRS scheme, all resident individuals, including minors, are allowed to freely remit up to $250,000 per financial year. This is for any permissible current or capital account transaction.
The scheme was initially introduced with a limit of $25,000.
The LRS limit has been revised due to the prevailing macro and microeconomic conditions.