Hindustan Times: New Delhi: Thursday, May 11, 2017.
The Central
government owes Rs 451.75 crore to Air India for VVIP flights carrying the
president, vice president and the prime minister, as well as special missions,
according to the latest data provided under the Right To Information Act.
As per the
information provided in response to the RTI query filed by retired Commodore
Lokesh Batra, senior officials of the Civil Aviation Ministry, including Union
minister Ashok Gajpathi Raju, had written 31 letters between 2014 and 2017 to
various ministries asking them to make timely payments to the national carrier
for accruing dues at various points in time.
The officials
had asked concerned ministries to ensure availability of maintenance funds and
make budgetary changes for VVIP flights and other special missions run by the
national carrier yet outstandings were never cleared completely, the records
provided under the RTI act show.
Air India
keeps three Boieng 747-400 aircraft for running chartered services for the
President, the Vice President and the Prime Minister during their visits
abroad.
It also runs
special evacuation mission and provides other special services for foreign
dignitaries.
The
outstanding bills on account of the chartered VVIP flights, maintenance of the
aircraft and evacuation missions by the External Affairs Ministry (MEA)
remained at Rs 451.75 crore as on March 31, 2017 with some bills dating back to
the year 2006, the response show.
The RTI
response given to retired Commodore Lokesh Batra shows Rs 47.37 crore was
pending towards six abroad visits of the prime minister to the United States,
African countries, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Thailand between November 9, 2016
and February 10, 2017.
Bills of Rs
206.19 crore towards 22 visits of the vice president between June, 2008 and
March 18, 2017 are still pending with the MEA, it shows.
Additional
bills of Rs 145.63 crore towards the maintenance of Boeing 747-400 aircraft for
2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 for the vice-president’s flights are yet to be
cleared by the ministry, it says.
Bills for
services offered by the national carrier to evacuate Indians from war zones of
Iraq, Malta, Cairo and relief sent to the USA during Katrina hurricane in
September, 2005 have not been cleared by the ministry till now, it shows.
The ministry
has yet to pay Rs 23.57 crore pending on account of 27 flights for foreign
dignitaries, it shows.
The MEA had
not cleared bills for four flights for the president from November 2008 to
September 2016 amounting to Rs 26.02 crore and maintenance cost Rs 83.70 crore
for the aircraft till March 31 this year, it shows.
Air India had
posted an operating profit of Rs 105 crore in FY 2015-16, the Government had
claimed but the Comptroller and Auditor General has had disputed the figure
saying it was a loss of Rs 321 crore.
This year
Joint Secretary of civil aviation ministry Satyendra Mishra wrote to the home
ministry seeking to clear Rs 45.97 crore on account of dues for the flights of
the prime minister.
“Air India
has shortage of cash flow and is unable to meet its various financial
obligations. So, I shall be grateful if you could kindly look into the matter
personally to ensure that the outstanding dues of AI are cleared at the
earliest,” Mishra’s letter to Additional Secretary, Home Ministry on April 10,
2017 stated.
Similar
letters were also sent to on April 10, 2017 to the MEA and the Defence Ministry
seeking clearance of bills for the VVIP visits, operations and maintenance.
The records
show that Minister of Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju had to intervene to
recover previous pending dues.
In his letter
dated December 21, 2015 to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Raju said Air India
is operating under Turn Around Plan and Financial Restructuring Plan approved
by the CCEA for its financial and operations turn around.
“However,
despite improvement in many of its parameters, it is still incurring losses and
is facing financial crunch,” he wrote.
He requested
Jaitley’s intervention in ensuring that the dues of all the four ministries are
released to Air India.
“Whatever
need be, the requisite amounts may be allocated to these ministries in their
budget at the third supplementary stage,” he wrote.
Activist
Batra, who got these records under the RTI Act, said he was sad to find that
Air India has not made desirable improvement in cutting down the time in
preparing invoices after VVIP visits.
“The
authorities responsible for paying bills initially do not project adequate
funds for the year. For example, MHA has been initially projecting only Rs 200
crore for the year and later seek more allocation at revised estimate stage of
budget,” Batra told PTI.
He said it
could result in the payments being delayed until the funds are available in the
next financial year.