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Austerity? Rs 65,000 a
month on taxi rental, hotel
bills, airline tickets... ask
ONGC
Amitav Ranjan
Posted online: Jan 12, 2009 at 0102 hrs

New Delhi : Former ONGC chairman Subir Raha had once complained that the Petroleum
Ministry was treating the public sector undertaking as its “fiefdom”. He was shown the door
after a five-year term even though he had two more years to go before superannuation.

Three years later, documents show that many bureaucrats in the ministry are using the
country’s most-profitable PSU for benefits like chauffeur-driven cars, payment of mobile
bills, air fare and hotel stay, collectively running into lakhs of rupees.

Documents show that the state-run oil and gas exploration firm had provided vehicles “for
the duties of the officers of the ministry on regular basis” paying monthly rents between

Rs 35,000 and Rs 65,000 on each car. Some of these taxis have been deployed for more
than a year and were still continuing, ONGC records show.

What is disquieting is that the bureaucrats were utilising these

facilities from ONGC while collecting Rs 1,800 or more as transport allowances in their
paycheck even when the Department of Expenditure had clearly defined that “the

allowance will not be admissible to those employees who have been provided with the facility
of government transport”.

As for mobile phones, almost all directors, joint secretaries and the ministry’s only additional
secretary had been provided a connection, with ONGC having paid Rs 2.30 lakh as usage
bills until September 2008, while the officials were collecting Rs 1,500 plus per month as
reimbursement on mobile/residential phone.

The navratna company also footed air tickets, five-star hotel accommodation and cars at
Chennai, Mumbai and Ahmedabad for the ministry staff as well as their relatives.

While one director ran up a bill of Rs 6.3 lakh for 16 nights stay at different times in hotels
of Mumbai and Chennai, a former Petroleum Secretary chalked up more than Rs 2 lakh for
five nights in different hotels of Mumbai and Chennai.

The ONGC also shelled out Rs 1.35 lakh on airline tickets for

officials in the Mumbai-Delhi sector and Rs 1.99 lakh in taxi bills for ministers and officials
travelling in and around Gujarat.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story_print.php?storyid=409610 18/01/2009