PM Modi flew non-official trips to rallies in IAF planes at rates fixed in 1999
According to RTI reply, Prime Minister’s Office paid IAF Rs 89 lakh for 128 trips, which private chartered flight operators say would have cost much more
Updated on: Jul 26, 2017, 22:14:09 IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi
The Prime Minister’s Office has paid around Rs 89 lakh to the Indian Air Force for flying Narendra Modi on 128 “non-official” domestic trips since he took office, an expense that was lower than what it would have been had the PM used through commercial providers.
An IAF helicopter takes off with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he addressed an election rally in Bihar in 2015. (PTI FILE)
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The trips were largely for electioneering, and India’s election code makes it must for ministers — including the PM — to reimburse the government if its machinery is used in such cases.
The flights provided by IAF were mostly when the Prime Minister had to fly out to remote locations in helicopters or small planes instead of his usual mode of air transport: the Air India One. The rates for these flights were last revised by the defence ministry in 1999.
In all, the IAF provided details of 128 non-official flights taken by the PM from May 2014 till February 2017, when Modi was on a whirlwind tour of election-bound states that included Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Assam, the Right to Information reply provided by the air force to Commodore (retired) Lokesh K Batra said.
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The disclosures could cause some unease among Bharatiya Janata Party’s rivals, who can claim that the lower rates put the PM’s party at an advantage with respect to election spending.
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The disclosures could cause some unease among Bharatiya Janata Party’s rivals, who can claim that the lower rates put the PM’s party at an advantage with respect to election spending.
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In his application, Batra asked the IAF about the domestic visits by the PM and the mode of payment. He also sought details of the rules under which the PM is allowed to use IAF planes for domestic visits.
Quoting the rules, the IAF said no charge will be recovered for use of aircraft by the President, vice-president, the prime minister (except when he/she travels otherwise than on official duty), the ministers of defence and home and senior defence ministry officials for defence purposes.
The reply said the rates will be calculated at commercial rates if the destination is linked by a regular commercial air service and, in other cases, with reference to per passenger per kilometres rates notified by the defence ministry. The reply said the rates were last notified in 1999.
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The PMO paid the air force Rs 31,000 for a Delhi-Gorakhpur-Delhi flight and Rs 7,818 for Mangalore-Kasargod-Mangalore flight, which private chartered airline operators said was lower than the commercial rate.
The cost for Delhi-Rohtak-Sonipat-Ambala trip was Rs 1,00,440, and the PMO paid Rs 63,957 for Kolkata-Balasore-Kalaikunda-Balasore-Kalaikunda-Bagdogra-Guwahati flight. Cost of some flights like Calicut-Vikram ground was just Rs 5,693.
“It is surprising that the PMO has paid for PM’s non-official visits which were for electioneering. As per election rules, his party (BJP) should have paid the money,” Batra said.
BJP sources, however, said that the money is paid to the PMO and is shown in the election expenditure report submitted to the election commission.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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