Government agencies owe Air India about ₹600 crore for deploying its aircraft for meeting the travel needs of VVIPs, a senior government official said on Thursday.

Whenever the President, Vice-President and the Prime Minister travel abroad, an aircraft is requisitioned from Air India. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent three-nation visit, Air India had to send a second aircraft to Berlin to ferry the VVIP delegation onwards to Canada as the aircraft deployed earlier developed a snag.

A senior Government official said that the money was primarily owed by the Ministries including those of External Affairs, Defence and Home.

Bailout package The news of the outstanding dues comes even as the Ministry of Civil Aviation is seeking to garner an additional ₹1800 crore for the state-owned airline through the Supplementary Demand for Grants for Union Budget 2015-16. The Budget allocated ₹2,500 crore against a demand for ₹3,400 crore by the airline. The Ministry is hopeful of making good the shortfall in Government funding for the airline in the Supplementary Demand for Grants, which is expected to be cleared by Parliament soon.

Making a strong pitch for more state funding, the airline top brass has been pointing out that Air India’s net loss came down to ₹5,389 crore in the last fiscal compared with ₹5,490 crore in the financial year 2013 and ₹7,559.74 crore in FY12.

The airline has been surviving on a bailout package of over ₹30,000 crore which was approved by the Manmohan Singh Government in April 2012.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW