Bhubaneswar, July 18: Orissa may be tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, but its bureaucrats think nothing of frittering away lakhs of rupees from the exchequer to get club membership for its employees.

Replying to a question by Congress member Debashis Patnaik, public enterprise minister Kanak Vardhan Singhdeo told the Assembly that the state-owned Grid Corporation of Orissa (Gridco), spent Rs 3 lakh to let its senior officials take up membership of the posh Bhubaneswar Club in 1999. The loss-making Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation and the Orissa Hydro Power Corporation spent Rs 2 lakh each for the same purpose.

The Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) shelled out Rs 1.25 lakh while the Orissa Small Industries Corporation, Orissa Power Generation Corporation and the Industrial Development Corporation Limited paid Rs 40,000 each to get the coveted club membership for some of its officials.

Orissa is currently weighed down by a loan burden of Rs 32,312 crore.

Singhdeo said these PSUs spent Rs 8.65 lakh as club membership fees for “protecting the business interests of the utilities”. However, most of these PSUs continue to be in the red and the government has planned to sell some of them.

Singhdeo said the government would withdraw the provision of enabling PSUs to have corporate membership of the club if the Assembly took such a decision. Singhdeo is himself a member of the Bhubaneswar Club. Almost all the IAS officers and prominent businessmen in Bhubaneswar are members of the club.

The club has had its own share of controversy as well. On January 27 last year, the birthday party of IAS officer Priyabrata Patnaik at the club ran into controversy after a wildlife activist complained to the chief minister that exotic Siberian birds from Chilika lake were served for dinner.