DH Exclusive: Government owes Air India Rs 1,371 crore, says RTI

At a time when the government is trying to sell its stake in the debt-ridden Air India, the new set of documents under RTI, accessed by DH, reveal that the government owes the national carrier a sum of Rs 1,371.14 crore for various travels by VIPs over the last several years.

However, Air India has provisioned for only one-fifth of the amount due—worth Rs 282 crore, reveals the reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query by Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd).

Of the total sum due, the government of India owes Air India Rs 845.04 crore for the travel of the ‘very very important persons’ (VVIPs). The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) owes the highest amount to the airline—Rs 473.88 crore, followed by the Ministry of Defence (Rs 261.76 crore) and Ministry of External Affairs (Rs 109.41 crore). According to the reply, Air India hasn’t made any provisions over the amount due from the government on account of VVIPs.

The non-VVIP travel, which includes the travel of the government departments, amounts to Rs 526.14 crore. Of this, almost half of the sum—worth Rs 236.15 crore has been due for more than three years. In the past year, the dues from the government departments have bulged by Rs 167 crore.

In the wake of the increased dues from the government departments, the airline has started recovering the monies from them. “We have stopped giving credit to any department that owes us more than Rs 10 lakh as of now. This will help us in the recovery,” a senior Air India official told DH.

The Group of Ministers (looking after the AI sale, named as the Air India Specific Alternative Mechanism, is headed by Home Minister Amit Shah.

The government released an expression of interest (EoI) document for the sale of the airline on January 27.

The government committed to divest 100% of its stake—seen as a move to attract more bidders.