The committee has been formed as per the instructions of the NOC Board, said a senior official at the corporation. He informed Republica that the team will study situation of losses at all NOC depots for the last 10 years, identify officials deployed in the respective depots and recommend actions if they were found engaged in anomalies. [break]
Technical loss in petroleum trade is unavoidable, but to manage it, the corporation has fixed ´loss ceiling´ for all depots, based on their locations and volume of oil they transact. For instance, NOC´s present loss ceiling for Amlekhgunj depot is 0.57 percent for petrol and 0.40 for diesel. For kerosene, the ceiling is still lower.
“Since the loss is fixed based on international norms and adjusted on the basis of growth in transaction, all the loss amount exceeding the ceiling can be said as intentional loss created by the staff,” said the source. “It is a corruption and hence, punishable,” he added.
The NOC board had instructed for the probe and actions against culprits after a study commissioned by Ministry of Commerce and Supplies (MoCS) found all 24 staff, including the chief and deputy at Amlekhgunj depot, working in nexus and inflicting a net loss of some Rs 30 million to the corporation.
Following such finding, the board had asked the management to take appropriate action against them and recover the loss amount from them.
Simultaneously, it had instructed the management to sweep operations at all depots and punish wrongdoers of the past as well.
The management, however, has not yet taken action against the wrongdoers in Amlekhgunj. The resistance from staffs and even trade unions is too strong and the NOC chief, who is appointed politically, fears ´no cooperation movement´ from the staff, said the source about the reasons for dilly-dallying. “Mainly the decision to probe past losses has come as an act of hurling stone in hornet´s nest.”
Because almost all senior staffs have worked as depot chiefs at one time or other and taken benefits in the similar fashion, they all have grouped together against the management (Refer to the graph).
The pressure is so heavy, NOC officials openly suggested myrepublica.com not to be surprised if the management did not take any action at all.
´Committee is hoax!´
Interestingly, sources at the corporation referring to the individuals appointed in the newly formed committee said that the probe committee itself is a hoax.
The special committee has Vijendra Singh, former NOC staff who manned Amlekhgunj depot during 1989/90, as the coordinator. And NOC statistics show, during that year, the depot´s technical loss had averaged at 1.84 percent, which is a record high at the depot so far.
Likewise, it has Kalyan Kumar Marahattha, recently retired NOC staff, and Harihar Raj Joshi, another NOC staffer as members. Records say, Marahattha had lost his grade on a case of leakage when he served as chief of NOC´s Birgunj office in the past. “Joshi too is infamous for leakage within the corporation,” stated the source.
Given such a situation, officials claimed that the committee has been formed to dilute the issue, pacify the staff and possibly give clean cheats to all past wrongdoers.
milan@myrepublica.com
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