Troubled by the mounting telephone bills of its bureaucrats, Uttaranchal government has asked its officials to cut down on calls made from personal mobile phones as well as landlines at their residences.

The state has now put up a limit on telephone expenditure of bureaucrats, except the Chief Secretary and Additional Chief Secretary. The Principal Secretaries would be entitled to 1,200 free calls a month, while a Deputy Secretary would be allowed 600 free calls.

The state has learnt its lesson the hard way. In the past three years, it has spent over Rs 75 lakh on mobile and landline phone bills of its bureaucrats. Despite a mammoth debt of over Rs 12,000 crore, it has paid bills of Rs 48 lakh for landline phones and Rs 27 lakh for mobiles. In fact, just one private mobile operator was paid Rs 22 lakh for the April 2003 to March 2006.

Some of the bureaucrats had been judicious in the use of the phone facility, while others made maximum use of the facility. Former Tourism secretary N N Parsad, now on deputation to the Centre, made calls worth Rs 2.07 lakh from his mobile followed by Industry secretary Sanjeev Chopra who incurred a bill of Rs 1.64 lakh. Another secretary Amarendra Sinha had a bill of Rs 1.63 lakh, while Civil Aviation secretary P.C. Sharma rang up a bill of Rs 1.46 lakh. Former chief secretary and now Union Urban Development secretary M Ramachandran spent Rs 80,000 while another secretary Om Parkash spent Rs 93,000.

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