It has even formed a three-member probe team under the coordination of board member Sita Ram Joshi for carrying out the investigation and recommending actions against the staff who failed to adhere to its loss norms.[break]
“The team will study the loss at three depots -- Amalekhgunj, Biratnagar and Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), which consistently reported technical loss much higher than the set limit,” NOC Managing Director Digambhar Jha told Republica.
The team has been asked to ascertain the causes of excess loss, identify wrongdoers, and recommend both corrective steps and actions against those involved in wrongdoing.
Amalekhgunj and Biratnagar depots are main supply outlets of fuel for the central and eastern regions. Depot in TIA is an exclusive depot for aviation turbine fuel (ATF) that refuels aircrafts -- both domestic and international.
Despite the board´s strict order to the management to control leakage, staff at those depots had reported technical loss higher than the permitted limit in the last fiscal year.
Mainly, staff at Amalekhgunj had claimed that the depot lost 0.96 percent of total petrol they handled due to technical loss. They should have contained such loss at less than 0.57 percent.
They had also reported 0.58 percent loss in case of diesel in 2009/10. Likewise, Biratnagar depot had reported 0.42 percent technical loss in diesel during the year. Both these figures were higher than the management´s target to limit it below 0.40 percent. Likewise, depot at TIA had reported technical loss of 0.74 percent, whereas it was asked to contain it below 0.62 percent.
“Together, the loss amount in these cases runs into millions of rupees,” said a board member of the corporation. In recent years, the NOC board has been tagging such unnaturally high technical loss as ´leakages´ and outcome of irregularities and asked the management to land axe against the wrongdoers and recoup the excess loss amount from them.
Likewise, Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority is also investigating a similar case of loss at Amalekhgunj depot, in which previous depot Chief Dinesh Yadav and others inflicted Rs 2.92 million loss to the corporation. For the loss, NOC management has suspended Yadav and also the whole set of staff. It has even asked the employees to repay the loss amount. It is also probing a similar case at the depot, which involves its former chief Bijay Parbat.
However, staff at NOC depots attribute higher loss to change in the import point from Raxaul to Barauni, which is a hotter place (than Raxaul). The fuel, according to them, is lost due to the higher temperature in Barauni. In case of TIA depot too, the staff argue, the loss mounted because fuel is distributed either early in the morning or late at night, the time when temperature drops and shrinks the volume of fuel.
Related story
NOC Thankot Depot distributes oil on Laxmi Puja
-1778925320.webp)
