Praful Patel - Allegations of Corruption

Allegations of Corruption

As Civil Aviation Minister of India, Praful Patel is believed to be the main person responsible for the systematic destruction of Air India. There have been irregularities in the purchases of multiple aircraft during his tenure as the Minister of Civil Aviation. Air India was making a profit of around Rs.105 crore, till the 2003-2004 fiscal. As of 2011, Air India has a debt of more than Rs.40,000 crore and an estimated loss of Rs.7000 crore..

He has earned notoriety because between April 2009 and April 2011 his personal assets grew by 53%—from Rs. 79 crore to Rs. 122 crore—at the rate of Rs. 5 lakh per day. The same period saw a remarkable rise in the debt incurred by India's national carrier, Air India.

There are also allegations of misuse of Air India by Patel's family members. His daughter, Poorna Patel, who was a hospitality manager with the Indian Premier League(IPL), used her influence to charter an AI aircraft to ferry IPL players from Chandigarh to Chennai, resulting in the cancellation of a scheduled Coimbatore bound passenger flight IC 7603. In another incident, a response by Air India to a petition filed under the Right to Information Act, 2005 revealed that Praful Patel made the debt-ridden airline switch aircraft type from an Airbus A319 to a larger Airbus A320 on the Bangalore - Male route in 2010 to ensure business class travel for his family.

In February 2012, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police accused Praful Patel, during his tenure as aviation minister, of accepting a $250,000 bribe from an Ottawa-based Indian businessman to influence the tender for a $100 million contract to supply machine readable boarding cards and facial recognition software. Soon after, Patel also faces CBI in-house probe over bribe link

As civil aviation minister, Praful Patel put dozens of roadblocks in transferring the Nagpur airport to the ambitious MIHAN (Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur) project. MIHAN aimed to leverage Nagpur’s unique geographical location at the centre of India to create a road, rail and air transport hub for movement of goods east-west-north-south. The project was quickly sucked into controversy over land acquisition and remained at a standstill.

Strangely, Praful Patel’s role is not even mentioned in connection with MIHAN or any other controversy, and these alleged scams are rarely discussed even in the context of his systematic destruction of Air India and its being pushed it into a debt trap.

Despite the size of Praful Patel’s CeeJay Group, it is listed with the Indian government as a small and medium enterprise and is given several federal subsidies. Despite all the health hazards Bidi, the Indian government refuses to take a clear stand on bidi and public health. Praful Patel once promoted bidi as the best employment option for women. "If they didn't do this, what other job could these women do? It's just like knitting. It’s a fine-tuned, nice job,” Patel told The Wall Street Journal in 1999.