You may find it unbelievable but it is true. The Indian government owes a huge sum of money to already indebted national airlines to the tune of whopping 325 crores in the form of unpaid bills for the charter flights taken to the foreign countries for VVIPS. The above information has been revealed through the means of RTI quoted India’s largest news agency PTI.
According to the reports, the highest amount of dues are from the External Affairs Ministry. In its reply dated March 8, the national carrier said that as of January 31, Rs 84.01 crore in pending bills was carried forward from 2016-’17, and the remaining Rs 241.8 crore debt was generated in the current financial year, reported the Scroll.
According to the reports, Air India airlines modify the commercial aircraft into the charter planes for the overseas trips made by the senior officials such as President, Vice President, Prime Minister, Defence and Foreign Ministers and the prime minister’s office and the cabinet secretariat are supposed to pay the bills for the same. But here, in this case, the payment has not been made for the past two years and debt has been mounted to 325 crores.
According to the reports, as on the 31st January 2018, the Indian government owes the Air India Rs. 325.81 crores out of which Rs 84.01 crore were carried forward from the previous financial year and the remaining Rs 241.8 crore was generated this year.
The national career which is almost on the verge of privatization has provided the details of the pending bills towards various Ministries responsible for the VVIP visits in its latest response to a query by Commodore (Retd.) Lokesh Batra. The breakup of the pending bills is as follows. According to the reports Rs. 178.55 crore is from the External Affairs Ministry while the cabinet secretariat and PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) owes Rs. 128.84 crore and Defence Ministry owes Rs. 18.42 crore.
According to the reports, the total outstanding was Rs. 1004.72 crores out of which they have paid Rs. 678.91 crores. Many times the trips have been taken for the joy rides and the load comes to the exchequer which is basically a taxpayer’s money
