New Delhi: A report claiming that the Union government is considering a year-long tax on foreign travel to offset higher import costs due to the West Asia crisis is “totally false” and contains “not an iota of truth”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an unusual rebuke.CNBC-TV18 had reported on Friday (May 15) citing sources that a temporary cess, tax or surcharge on foreign travel, likely to last a year, was being contemplated at the “highest levels” of government as a way of easing fiscal strain caused by crude oil and import prices pushed up by the West Asia crisis.However Modi denied the report in a reply to the broadcaster on X. “This is totally false. Not an iota of truth in this. There is no question of putting such restrictions on foreign travel,” he wrote on Friday evening, adding that the government remains committed to improving “ease of doing business” and “ease of living”.Twenty minutes later CNBC-TV18 recanted its report, calling it “not accurate” and expressing regret.Its report came after Modi earlier this week twice called on Indians to avoid vacationing and holding destination weddings abroad – and also to defer purchases of gold in addition to cutting back on fuel and cooking oil purchases – as a way of saving foreign exchange in light of the higher costs imposed by the West Asia crisis.“Nowadays foreign travel and destination weddings abroad have become a growing trend … But this also results in huge foreign exchange expenditure,” he told an audience while inaugurating a hostel in Vadodara, adding: “It is important that we vacation within India. And for weddings too, I do not believe there can be a more sacred place than India.”His remarks attracted controversy and criticism, including from the opposition. It was also pointed out, by this outlet among others, that Modi had held multiple roadshows just before making his pitch for parsimony with fuel.Even as Modi called on citizens to save fuel, Union petroleum and natural gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri while maintaining that India does not face energy shortages hinted that state-owned retailers facing losses would have to hike prices at the pump. On Friday they raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 3 per litre, the first increase in some four years.