Senior govt officials still pay just R24 for a litre of petrol

This certainly won’t help swallow the bitter petrol hike pill.

Petrol prices have tripled for the common man in the last 13 years but
the country’s top civil servants haven’t had to deal with a fuel hike
since 1999. Senior government officials pay just a measly ` 700 every
month to use their air-conditioned official cars for private purposes.


This amount was last fixed in 1999, when petrol went for ` 23.80 a
litre in Delhi. Thursday’s hike, which took the price of the fuel to `
73.18, was the 65th revision in the last 13 years.

If the government officials had to pay for the fuel from their pocket
now, ` 700 would take them no further than 70-100 km, depending on
what chauffeurdriven car they use.

The charge was introduced in 1994 to legalise personal use of staff
cars by secretary-level officers.
“It is not an unlimited concession. There is an upper limit of 500 km
a month,” a government official said. But he acknowledged this limit
could be “managed” in the logbooks.

Another pointed out, in a lighter vein, that there was an advantage in
insulating the bureaucracy from spikes in petrol prices. “It helps
them take decisions in public interest without having to worry about
its impact on their household budgets,” he remarked.

Incidentally, the concessional charge was fixed in the context of a
secretary-rank officer getting a monthly salary of ` 26,000 (plus
dearness allowance). By now, the fixed scale has increased three-fold
to ` 80,000.