Nirbhay Kumar
New Delhi: Struggling with severe cash flow issues, national carrier Air India wants the Secretariats of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to clear its dues.
Sources said that the airline recently wrote to Lok Sabha Secretariat for clearing the dues and even offered to write off a portion of it as records for the same could not be easily found.
“Total dues of about Rs 35 crore is owed by the Lok Sabha. A part of this pertains to years before 2014 and hence the airline management has decided to write that off as neither Air India nor Lok Sabha would find the supporting documents easily,” said an official aware of the matter.
Rajya Sabha owes about Rs 7 crore to the national carrier which has been put on the block by the government.
The airline is pursuing the matter with Rajya Sabha Secretariat and hopes to recover the dues.
Air India has often found it difficult to recover its dues for operating special flights to ferry the VVIPS — President, Vice-President and Prime Minister. In its earlier report, national auditor CAG had even pulled up the airline for not being able to recover the dues.
Being the national carrier, Air India operates special flights for VVIP movement, evacuation and foreign dignitaries. At the end of 2020, the total outstanding on account of these flights stood at Rs 498.17 crore.
With aviation being the worst-affected sector from pandemic, Air India has seen its revenue severely affected. A delay in payments by government departments and agencies has added to its woes.
“There is no significant impact of the government outstanding on the losses incurred by Air India. However, regular follow up for the same are made by Air India/Ministry of Civil Aviation and normally such dues are cleared from time to time,” Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha last month.
With Air India being in perennial loss and government pushing disinvestment of PSUs aggressively, the airline is up for sale with irresistible offer for private parties.
With the first stage of bidding being in the last lap, the shortlisted bidders would soon submit financial proposal to acquire the flag carrier.
Salt-to-software business conglomerate Tata Group is being seen as the frontrunner for the airline.