Extract of report from TOI about how money gets wasted by inefficient and negligent planning and utilisation:
While ministers toy with all kinds of ideas to curb consumption of oil, including bizarre ones such as shutting down petrol pumps at night, it might help if they looked inwards. For, the biggest and most profligate oil consumer in the country is the government itself.
Petrol flows like water in the government. Not just ministers and officials of the central and state governments, even PSUs and other government agencies don't have a limit on petrol/diesel consumption. Procuring any data on the fuel bill of the government is impossible because - believe it or not - no tab is kept on it. Ministries, for instance, club fuel with other "office expenses" (OE), which includes everything from stationery to toilet paper. The OE of the central government in Delhi was estimated at Rs 5,200 crore in 2011-12. A major chunk of this would be fuel.
Pumped up
Let's look at the use of staff cars by central ministers, secretaries, additional and joint secretaries, and directors based in the national capital.
There are 70 secretary-rank officers, 131 additional secretaries, 525 joint secretaries and 1,200 directors. Not all directors have a staff car but many do. If we take the secretaries, additional and joint secretaries, and just half the directors, and give them a modest entitlement of 200 litres of free petrol per month, the monthly consumption is 2.56 lakh litres.
This estimate is conservative because in reality, the petrol entitlement is limitless.
Read this link for full article:Gas-guzzling government talks austerity, burns crores - The Times of India
It seems that economic slowdown is for ordinary citizens only and not for everybody.
While ministers toy with all kinds of ideas to curb consumption of oil, including bizarre ones such as shutting down petrol pumps at night, it might help if they looked inwards. For, the biggest and most profligate oil consumer in the country is the government itself.
Petrol flows like water in the government. Not just ministers and officials of the central and state governments, even PSUs and other government agencies don't have a limit on petrol/diesel consumption. Procuring any data on the fuel bill of the government is impossible because - believe it or not - no tab is kept on it. Ministries, for instance, club fuel with other "office expenses" (OE), which includes everything from stationery to toilet paper. The OE of the central government in Delhi was estimated at Rs 5,200 crore in 2011-12. A major chunk of this would be fuel.
Pumped up
Let's look at the use of staff cars by central ministers, secretaries, additional and joint secretaries, and directors based in the national capital.
There are 70 secretary-rank officers, 131 additional secretaries, 525 joint secretaries and 1,200 directors. Not all directors have a staff car but many do. If we take the secretaries, additional and joint secretaries, and just half the directors, and give them a modest entitlement of 200 litres of free petrol per month, the monthly consumption is 2.56 lakh litres.
This estimate is conservative because in reality, the petrol entitlement is limitless.
Read this link for full article:Gas-guzzling government talks austerity, burns crores - The Times of India
It seems that economic slowdown is for ordinary citizens only and not for everybody.