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| During Durbar Moves, SRTC hires private trucks, keeps its own vehicles in garages | | Draining the Public Purse! | | Early Times Report
Jammu, June 1: During the annual Durbar Move of government offices from Jammu to Srinagar and vice versa, the State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) instead of putting its own trucks to use hired private load carriers for transportation of load from one capital to other.
Documents in possession of Early Times reveal that as per Sadriya Riyasat Order (SRO) 157 of 26 April 2001, the Government Departments had to hire trucks from JKSRTC only, as per need. The Government Departments were required to obtain No Objection Certificate (NOC) from JKSRTC before hiring from Private entities. The Corporation also had the flexibility of Contract Hiring of Trucks (CHT) from private transporters based on the demand of goods carriage vehicles. This SRO 157, was, however, abolished in March 2018. Reports revealed that the Corporation had not assessed the requirement of trucks for the carriage of goods for the period from 2014 to 2019. Even the total demand could not be furnished to Audit by the unit in Srinagar.
Records reveal despite the purchase of new 63 trucks during 2018-19, the Traffic Manager (Load), Jammu could not supply adequate vehicles as per the demand in Jammu Division. It was also, noticed that on one hand, the Corporation was hiring trucks from private entities in Jammu while keeping its trucks idle at Srinagar. Furthermore, the Jammu unit of the Corporation could cater only to 19 per cent demand from its own fleet during period from 2014 to 2019 for supply of trucks required for carriage of goods. Despite engaging private contractor for meeting the bulk requirement (74 per cent), there was a shortfall of seven per cent in meeting the overall demand. Demand of trucks was not assessed at Srinagar, as a result the rationale for allocation of trucks among the two units could not be assessed when audit into the issue was conducted in the past. It was seen that although 36,805 truck days were available, only 1,211 were deployed by JKSRTC in Srinagar in 2018-19.
The concerned department in its defense to the past committees has stated that the fleet strength of JKSRTC is less as compared to CHT Contractor, due to which share of CHT Contractor is higher in meeting the demand of the Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) and other Government Departments. This also indicates that actual requirement was not assessed at the Corporate level. It is to mention that 36 to 100 trucks of Corporation remained idle for want of drivers (April 2018 to March 2019) in office of the Traffic Manager (Load), Srinagar which comprised 19 to 50 per cent of available operative truck fleet of 201 in the unit.
The non-supply of adequate trucks as per demand of goods carriage vehicles by the Corporation, despite a provision of hiring from private sources, led to an opportunity of generating revenue being lost. |
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