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Gas-guzzling government talks austerity, burns crores -Sidhartha & Surojit Gupta
-The Times of India


NEW DELHI: 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. Even when a limit is prescribed, it's quite high. For the officers in the Delhi government, a secretary's monthly entitlement of petrol is 700 litres -- enough for the officer to go from Delhi to Mumbai and back eight times a month!

At 200 litres per head, mantris burn at least 46,200 litres a month

On top of this there's fuel for the mantris. There are 77 Union ministers and each of them has at least three staff cars. Again, if the conservative estimate of 200 litres per month per car is applied, it works out to 46,200 litres.

Taking petrol at Rs 74.10/litre, the combined monthly tab of mantris and babus of the Centre in only Delhi works out to Rs 230 crore, or Rs 2,760 crore annually. Given that mantris and babus have no cap on their petrol consumption, it will be more accurate to round this off to Rs 3,000 crore annually.

This estimate does not include the hundreds of tax officials, paramilitary officers, officers in defence, CBI, other intelligence agencies, and railways. It also excludes the hundreds of state-run companies that often provide cars to ministers and babus.

Now, replicate these figures in state after state (see report on page xx), and the figure would run into hundreds of crores. Instead of tackling this colossal consumption, very often wasteful, the oil minister was seeking to impose a night curfew on petrol pumps until he was shouted down. Curbing government demand for fuel did not find a mention in any austerity plan.

150-car convoys

This even though there are anecdotes galore about the blatant misuse of staff cars by ministers, officers, their families and even their drivers. Officials also recall incidents of large-scale diversion of fuel to petrol pumps from staff cars.

Any official function leads to a jam with officers from various wings trying desperately to be part of the convoy of a minister or dignitary. And during elections, the convoys get longer without any thought for the fuel being wasted. "I once saw a convoy of 150 cars following a chief minister of a state," said T S R Subramanium, a former cabinet secretary. "There should be no official cars except for some important dignitaries and officials. Officials should use their own cars. Even for high-ranking dignitaries there should not be more than two or three cars. There is a need to drastically cut down on convoys," said Subramanium.

In 1990-91, after the first Gulf War and India's balance of payments crisis, the government had imposed night curfew at petrol pumps to cut oil imports and prevent the flight of precious foreign exchange. A note issued by the finance ministry on April 3, 1991 had also reduced the quarterly fuel entitlement of ministers and their personal staff to 600 litres a quarter, which works out to around 200 litres a month. For all ministries, the office memorandum prescribed a 20% cut.

Those days a handful of senior officers in the government had the luxury of staff cars. Today, the situation is very different. Go to any government building and you will find a parking problem. Most ministries are short of space to accommodate staff cars, leave alone those of visitors. The government restrictions on purchase of new vehicles and hiring of drivers have meant that the familiar white Ambassadors have given way to private taxis, which are hired for anywhere between Rs 30,000 and Rs 50,000 a month. These run 2,000-2,800 km a month, guzzling anywhere between 200 and 300 litres of fuel.

After all, even deputy secretaries and directors have managed to get an "official" vehicle, although only joint secretaries, additional secretaries and secretaries are entitled to staff cars. Secretaries can use government vehicles for private purposes if they pay Rs 700 a month to use it for 500 km. Even for a car which runs on diesel the bill comes to at least Rs 2 km a litre instead of Rs 1.40 per litre that the top babus pay.

Nothing official about it

Unlike secretaries, joint secretaries have to share vehicles for pick up and drop - the only permissible activity - apart from using them for attending meetings. But there are very few who play by the rule book.

Staff cars ferrying "madam" to the market or dropping the officer's children to schools and multiplexes is a common sight. This is clearly not in line with government rules. A 1972 government order, issued after "improper use of staff cars for private purposes" was brought to the then prime minister's notice, clearly stipulated that "non-duty journeys", including dropping children to school or for going to places of entertainment, public amusement, parties and pleasure trips, are prohibited.

There are only a handful of ministers and their staff who adhere to the 200 litre a month limit. While there is at least one staff car at the disposal of each minister, his private secretary and the bandwagon of additional private secretaries, have one each to themselves, which is usually not accounted for. "These cars are assigned to the minister's office. Departments with public sector companies or autonomous bodies provide as many vehicles as officers or ministers want," says an officer.

On an average how much do the staff cars run is anyone's guess but those working with the establishment wing of government departments say the taxis hired by the government are virtually unregulated, while the staff cars usually follow norms.

Times View

The government says there is a need to cut down on the country's consumption of petroleum products given the heavy import dependence. If it is serious in its intent, the best place to begin is by cutting down its own consumption rather than floating hare-brained schemes like shutting all pumps at night. As the largest consumer, it has the primary responsibility for reducing wasteful use of fuel. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of how blatantly official cars are misused for purely personal purposes in violation of the rules. How about cracking down on that? While they are at it, they might as well take a careful look at whether the limits set, where there are any limits, are reasonable. We would suggest in many cases they aren't and can be drastically pared.