Jet, Kingfisher owe oil PSUs over Rs 1,774 crore

Private airlines Jet Airways and Kingfisher owe state-owned oil firms over Rs 1,774 crore (Rs 17.74 billion) in unpaid jet fuel bills, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada said on Thursday.

In a written reply to a question, he said Jet Airways had the highest outstanding of Rs 960.15 crore (Rs 9.6 billion) as on June 30 towards state-owned fuel retailers while Kingfisher had Rs 814.49 crore (Rs 8.14 billion) in unpaid bills.

Jet owes Rs 830.4 crore (Rs 8.3 billion) to Indian Oil, Rs 129.74 crore (Rs 1.3 billion) to Bharat Petroleum and Rs 0.01 crore to Hindustan Petroleum. Kingfisher owes HPCL Rs 536.04 crore (Rs  5.4 billion), BPCL Rs 248.55 crore (Rs 2.49 billion) and IOC Rs 29.9 crore (Rs 299 million). In all, the six private airlines in the country owe Rs 1,887.82 crore (Rs 18.88 billion) to the oil companies.

Outstanding of Spicejet (Rs 74.5 crore), Go Air (Rs 18.8 crore), Indigo (Rs 0.6 crore) and Paramount Airways (Rs 19.28 crore) is marginal compared to what the giants Jet and Kingfisher owe to the oil firms.

Prasada said in case of default in payment, the airlines are put on 'cash-and-carry' mode and interest is recovered on all overdue payments.

"Oil marketing companies also encash bank guarantee and post dated cheques for recovery of their outstanding dues," he said. HPCL, he said, has put Kingfisher Airlines on cash and carry mode since July 1 while BPCL has filed a winding up petition in the Mumbai High Court against the Vijay Mallya- owned company.

"Recovery is being made by BPCL in line with consent terms between BPCL and Kingfisher Airlines before the court in November 2009 whereby the entire dues are to be cleared by November 2010," he added.