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Journalism of Courage
Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), the GMR-owned operator of the Delhi airport, has not made payments to the home ministry over the last seven months in lieu of the deployment of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) manning the airport, resulting in mounting dues of over Rs 120 crore.
The private operator has cited delays by the Centre in revising upwards the passenger service fee (PSF) paid by users of Indian airports as the reason for stalling payments.
State-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) registered a shortfall of Rs 120 crore in PSF collected at airports against salary payments it had to reimburse to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for CISF personnel providing security at its airports in the last financial year. Shortage of funds collected from PSF, says executives with DIAL, has forced it to stall payments to the MHA for the last seven months.
The hold-up in disbursements by DIAL has not affected salaries of CISF personnel as it is paid by the government, but it remains unclear how it would be reimbursed for outstanding dues of around Rs 150 crore that has piled up so far.
A spokesperson at DIAL said, “As per the state support agreement signed 10 years back, we are authorised to collect Rs 130 per passenger to reimburse salaries paid to CISF personnel manning our airport. However, after the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission came into force, average salary shot up by as much as 100 per cent. The number of personnel too has doubled to about 5000 since Terminal-3 opened.
The funds have increasingly become insufficient to meet salary requirements.” Salary outgo towards the CISF ranges between Rs 15-20 crore per month at DIAL. With the operator stalling reimbursement claims by MHA since mid-2014, cumulative dues have shot up to approximately Rs 150 crore in the last few months.
Airport operators across the country have been making representations to the ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) since 2010 to revise upwards the security component in PSF as CISF personnel deployed across airports have increased substantially in the last couple of years.
