Accountability for Government Vehicles

[ganeshbandhu]

Glad to fly with birds of the same feather - this is Ganesh from Secunderabad. Why dont i get started right away - a thing that bothers me about my city is the number of government vehicles on the road. My question is - are they really on "Govt Duty" - I find them parked near residences, waiting near schools to pick up kids, waiting at examination halls.

They are also growing stature - first we had Ambassadors but now we have Scorpios, Innovas and even Skodas.

I would like to use RTI to request the following information to be published every week for every government owned or leased or rented vehicle -

Vehicle registration number, make, model, dept it belongs to, officer it is allocated to (if anyone makes exclusive use of it as alloted by government), begining of week odometer reading, ending of week odometer reading, litres of fuel consumed.

If there is alarming amount of mileage on any vehicle we could try and find out what is happening.

Good idea, bad idea, dumb, any thoughts anyone?

[lnkhandual]

Hello Ganesh, Welcome to RTI India portal.You have started with a noble idea-an unwanted truth. Being a Govt. Officer, I donot hesitate to express my appreciation on your sensible feelings.This could be a best option to check the growing misuse of Govt Vehicles.It would be better if this could be a MANDATORY obligation of PAs and include in manual of proactive disclosure under the Act-at least monthly updation in notice board,website etc.

[DineshK]

Welcome to RTI Forum Ganesh. I appreciate the issue raised by you. But since every public authority has its own vehicle department we will have to file applications to all the departments to get the information.

While asking information we can ask the PA why the information is not vehicle is not updated on the their website.

[Dr. M. Faiyazuddin]

Glad to fly with birds of the same feather - this is Ganesh from Secunderabad. Why dont i get started right away - a thing that bothers me about my city is the number of government vehicles on the road. My question is - are they really on "Govt Duty" - I find them parked near residences, waiting near schools to pick up kids, waiting at examination halls.

They are also growing stature - first we had Ambassadors but now we have Scorpios, Innovas and even Skodas.

I would like to use RTI to request the following information to be published every week for every government owned or leased or rented vehicle -

Vehicle registration number, make, model, dept it belongs to, officer it is allocated to (if anyone makes exclusive use of it as alloted by government), begining of week odometer reading, ending of week odometer reading, litres of fuel consumed.

If there is alarming amount of mileage on any vehicle we could try and find out what is happening.

Good idea, bad idea, dumb, any thoughts anyone?

There is no use knowing about registration number, model, deptt. etc. Every department has a log book which maintains the movement of its vehicle. Kindly ask for a photo copy of the log book for a particular period/dates and check where the vehicle was found ? Then you can complain to the higher authorities about the movement of vehicles at school etc.

[smbhappy]

Even Log books are filled in a way to coverup all the misdeeds (misuse of vehicle). The Only thing that can help is the misuse of vehicle by photographing it, picking/dropping the kids at schools, Madam (of the Officer) doing shopping or going to Club, attending Parties and Marriges, Going to Theaters, doing household choirs (picking vegetables and grossary, or doing a round of sight-seeing for a friend or relative? Or the Kids of the Officer using the Vehicle for doing the rounds of the Girls College etc.

It is very difficult to pin point the misuse to the officer concerned as the custodian of the vehicle is its Driver. All misuse will be attributed to him and the poor fellow will be in trouble. The Officer will go scot free.

However there is no harm trying it anyway.

Go ahead, Do it.

[karira]

Another good idea will be to ask for the log book and then separately ask for the official schedule of the officer who has been allotted the vehicle.

Compare the two and many skeletons will tumble out.

[smbhappy]

Yes the presence of vehicle and the presence of the Officer at 2 distinct places at the same time will be a great instance of the misuse of the vehicle.

In one case the government vehicle was accidently photographed while it was being misused at a marrige. At that moment the TA Bill of the officer showed the he and the vehicle were hundreds of kilometers away from that place. Snce marrige has a date attached to it, Officer could not explain the presence of Vehicle at the marriage party. Officer faced disciplinary action and he was suitably punished.

So it is paramount to establish a strong link of misuse of vehicle.