MULTAN, April 1: The Agriculture Engineering Department has failed to recover diesel worth millions of rupees from its staff after the government ended its subsidy on the product used in bulldozers for land levelling by farmers.

The department was providing the facility of bulldozers to the farmers on rent for land levelling. The government was subsidising diesel to the farmers who were paying only Rs385 an hour as the rent of the machine against the Rs1,100 rent for commercial purposes.

Although the bulldozer supervisor was not authorised to keep in his custody more then 1,000-liter diesel, many of them allegedly managed to get the diesel from the AED’s store more than the allowed quantity. A bulldozer supervisor allegedly obtained 24,000 liter diesel from the store.

Sources told Dawn that it was not possible for a supervisor to get the diesel more than the prescribed quantity without the involvement of his higher-ups, including unit supervisor, assistant engineer, agriculture engineer and director, due to strict checking. “It is the duty of the unit supervisor to keep an eye on the machines under his supervision. Similarly, an assistant engineer is bound to conduct checking on a weekly basis, agriculture engineer every month and director every year.”

In view of complaints, sources revealed that the government took stock of irregularities and decided to end the subsidy on diesel on March 10, 2008 after which the department directed all bulldozer supervisors to return the extra or leftover diesel to the store.

There are 120 bulldozers in 13 districts of south Punjab and the number of staff for the purpose is 1,800.

Sources said for the average maintenance charges against a bulldozer, the government was paying Rs4,000 to Rs5,000 after 50-hour use of the machine, Rs7,000 to Rs11,000 after 150 hours and Rs15,000 to Rs20,000 after 1,000 hours. Interestingly, the department had borne the maintenance cost of few bulldozers more than their original cost, they added.

They revealed that in 2005 the entire record of the store was ‘burnt’ after it was proved that diesel was stolen from the store.

“No wonder if the history repeats itself,” he commented.

They said the staff concerned was worried over the government’s decision to do away with diesel subsidy and some of the officials were even campaigning among the farmers and getting their statements and requests for newspapers and the government for the restoration of the subsidy.

Agriculture Engineering Department Director Mian Ejaz Kamboh told this correspondent that he had issued directions regarding the return of diesel after the government ended its subsidy. He said a report was being prepared so that all the supervising staff could return the diesel.

He denied the staff’s involvement in any such campaign by contacting the farmers.