NEW DELHI: Pakistan has billed India Rs 2.86 lakh as route navigationcharges for Indian Air Force aircraft used by Prime Minister Narendra Modiduring a stopover in Lahore and visits to Russia, Afghanistan, Iran andQatar, an RTI response shows, PTI has reported.
The data gathered by activist Commodore (Retd) Lokesh Batra. through hisRTI application, show that till June 2016, Indian Air Force aircraft wereused for the Prime Minister’s visits to 11 countries–Nepal, Bhutan,Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Qatar, Australia, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, Fiji andSingapore.
Batra gave a copy of the RTI responses, received from August last year toJanuary 30 2018, to PTI. During one such visit on December 25, 2015, Modihad a brief stopover in Lahore at the request of then Pakistan PrimeMinister Nawaz Sharif. The stopover took place when Modi was returning fromRussia and Afghanistan.
For this, a bill of Rs 1.49 lakh has been issued as route navigationcharges, records accessed under the RTI Act from the Indian High Commissionin Pakistan show. Modi was received by Sharif with a warm hug at the tarmacof the Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore, when he made theunexpected stopover on his way back home following a day-long trip toAfghanistan after concluding a two-day visit to Russia.
Modi was accorded a red carpet welcome as the PM’s special Indian Air ForceBoeing 737 plane touched down at 4.50 pm. He then took a helicopter toSharif’s Raiwind palatial residence on the outskirts of Lahore to attendSharif’s birthday celebrations.
A bill of Rs 77,215 was imposed as route navigation charges by Pakistaniauthorities when Modi used an IAF aircraft to visit Iran on May 22-23,2016, and Rs 59,215 when he visited Qatar on June 4-6, 2016, the RTIresponse shows.
For both visits he flew over Pakistan. The records were part of a responsecollected from various missions of India on the expenditure incurred on thevisits of Modi on IAF aircraft between 2014 and 2016. According to the datacollected, a total of about Rs 2 crore has been spent on foreign visits ofthe Prime Minister during the period for the use of IAF aircraft.
Generally, an Air India aircraft is hired for the foreign visits of theVVIPs the President, the Vice President and the Prime Minister — for whichthe national carrier sends the bill. The bills for the Prime Minister’svisits are borne by the external affairs ministry.
The bills submitted by Indian missions in these countries include chargesfor fuelling, ground handling, airport charges, dearness allowance paid tothe staff, hotel stay, catering and mobile for the crew, transport hiring,captain’s imprest and other charges.