LAHORE, Aug 30: The Punjab Assembly Public Accounts Committee on Monday asked the provincial health secretary to identify the official who decided to provide electricity to the employees of a hospital in Faisalabad at subsidized rates.

The PAC was informed that the hospital purchased power at the rate of Rs5 per unit and supplied the same to the Allied Hospital staff for Rs3. The decision was taken some 16 years ago and the government had been suffering a loss since then.

The matter came to light when the PAC reviewed the audit report for the year 1999-2000. Asif Saeed Manais presided over the proceedings. The PAC ordered that the man responsible for taking the wrong decision should be made to pay Rs1.7 million for the year under review.

The committee was also told that nurses of the same hospital were paying as little as Rs100 a month as rent for their residential rooms. The rental value of the rooms was reassessed and the occupants had been asked to pay at the rate of Rs425 a month.