New Delhi, Oct 02: Hanging up doesn’t come easy to politicians. But now the matter may be out of the hands of at least the Union Council of Ministers. Fed up of the inflated phone bills sent by ministers for individual clearances, Finance Ministry has decided to fix a ceiling of Rs 2,500 per month each for all of them.
The ceiling will include monthly rentals on the phones and national and international roaming.
It’s quite a fall from grace for the Cabinet, whose members are more used to talking the talk rather than walking it. The monthly bills for many are actually ten times higher—Rs 25,000—needing the personal clearance of Finance Minister Jaswant Singh.
The order has obviously not gone down well, with ministers saying the limit is unrealistically low. ‘‘There is no way a minister can conduct official business with STD and ISD charges at such a low level,’’ says a senior cabinet minister.
According to an order circulated by the Department of Expenditure under the Ministry of Finance last month, ‘‘The monthly ceiling on call charges and rentals should be Rs 2,500 per month or the actual expenditure, whichever is less.’’.



The new order replaces the earlier ad hoc system wherein each ministry had its own way of clearing the bills of its minister and staff through a joint secretary or additional secretary level official, who acted in his capacity as the financial advisor of a given ministry. Whenever this official felt the bill was ‘high’ and didn’t want to take a call on it, the matter was referred to the Finance Minister.



Normally all MPs are allowed one landline phone with an annual limit of one lakh free calls. In addition, ministers are sanctioned two phones at their residences with unlimited calling facility for ‘‘official’’ purposes.



Additional WLL phones have been allocated to MPs, though these have been allowed usage within one- lakh call limit.