Pakistan has charged INR 2.86 Lakhs for the route navigation by Indian Air Force aircraft that was used by PM Modi while visiting Lahore and other countries including Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Qatar. Activist Commodore (Retd) Lokesh Batra gathered data through an RTI application which has revealed that the Indian Air Force aircraft was used for PM Modi’s visit to 11 countries.
On December 25, 2015, when Modi was returning from Russia and Afghanistan, he had a brief stopover in Lahore. For this, a bill amounting to INR 1.49 Lakhs has been issued as route navigation charges. After concluding the 2-day visit to Russia, Modi was on his way back home after a day-long trip to Afghanistan. This is when he unexpectedly landed in Lahore.
The then Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif welcomed Modi with a warm hug as the IAF Boeing 737 plane touched down at 4:50 pm. From there, the Indian PM took a helicopter to Sharif’s Raiwind palatial residence to attend the latter’s birthday celebrations.
In addition, INR 77,215 was imposed as route navigation charges when Modi used an IAF to visit Iran on May 22-23, 2016. Besides, INR 59,215 was charged for his trip to Qatar on June 4-6, 2016. All these charges mentioned in the bill include expenditure on fuelling, ground handling, airport charges, hotel stay, and dearness allowance paid to the staff, transport hiring, catering and mobile for the crew, captain’s imprest and so on.
As per the data collected from various missions of India, about INR 2 Crores has been spent for Modi’s foreign from 2014 to 2016 for the use of IAF. Usually, an Air India aircraft is used for the foreign trips of VVIPs including the President, the Vice President, and the Prime Minister. The national carrier sends the bill which is borne by the External Affairs Ministry.
