State Motor Garages is the agency that handles allotment of Government vehicles to Ministers, top bureaucrats and other senior officials in the departments. It has a large fleet of vehicles of different types. In 2015 Transport Department accorded sanction to the implementation of revised State Car Policy in favour of various executives as well as administrative functionaries of the State Government. Basically, the new policy took into consideration the fact that a car in terms of its price should be commensurate with the status meaning official position of the person to whom a vehicle is allotted.
With the creation of new administrative units and new posts, the demand for Government vehicles has increased as many more senior scale functionaries are entitled to government vehicles. The State Motor Garages have expressed their inability to meet the increasing demands. Additionally Ministers requisition vehicles for visiting guests and that is also a pressure on the SMG.
In order to cope with this situation and deal fairly in the matter of providing Government vehicles, and overcome the existing difficulty, the GAD had constituted a committed headed by the Financial Commissioner Hospitality and Protocol to examine the matter in full and formulate new State Car/Vehicle Policy. The entitlement of Government functionaries for official vehicles was to be re-defined after analyzing all the aspects and the difficulties being faced by the State Motor Garages. However, despite lapse of more than six months the committee has failed to come up with the policy. It met only twice during past six months but without any conclusive action. Moreover, the committee was also required to suggest measures to bring State Motor Garages out of the financial and manpower crisis.
No action during six months has made the functioning of the SMG difficult. Its problem is that it needs additional vehicles and manpower to handle the additional work. It is strange that the committee is not finding time to deal with the task assigned to it. Delay send a wrong message that the committee consisting of senior bureaucrats is not in favour of extending genuine support to the new cadres of officers. This is not a correct impression but delay in forming the policy gives rise to such speculations. We hope the GAD will understand the seriousness of the matter.
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