Major airline Air India has to get back Rs 822 crore for providing Very Very Important Person (VVIP) charter flights, according to a response to a Right to Information (RTI) application.
As per reports, the RTI application was filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra who sought information on the outstanding bills of Air India.
According to the RTI response, an additional Rs 9.67 crore was to be recovered for evacuation operations and Rs 12.65 crore for ferrying foreign dignitaries.
Under VVIP charter flights, Air India provides its aircraft to ferry – the President, the Vice President and the Prime Minister – for which the bills are paid by the ministries.
The carrier had also accrued bills of Rs 526.14 crore towards government offices which also include tickets taken on credit by the officials as on March 31, 2019, according to the reply.
Out of Rs 526.14 crore, Rs 236.16 crore were pending for over three years, Air India said in its response.
The airlines also said provisioned Rs 281.82 crore as an accounting charge in its account books for ‘probable non-recovery’.
Due to outstanding pending bills, the airline had stopped the practice of issuing tickets on credit to government agencies for the travel of their officials in December 2019.
As per the RTI reply, a number of agencies like the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax, Intelligence Bureau, CRPF, Department of Posts, Reserve Bank of India have to pay a huge amount of pending dues to Air India.