BMP drops plan to withdraw vehicles to medical officers, AROs

By Afshan Yasmeen

BANGALORE, SEPT. 2. With the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) elections fast approaching, the civic body's budgetary proposal of introducing cost-cutting measures is not likely to be implemented this year.

The Mahanagara Palike had decided to cut down on costs by withdrawing all vehicles given to assistant executive engineers (AEEs), medical officers of health, assistant revenue officers (AROs) and other field officers. Instead it had planned to sanction a monthly conveyance allowance of Rs.2,000 to each of these officers.

But five months after the decision was taken, the Mahanagara Palike authorities seem to have changed their mind. While 35 vehicles given to assistant executive engineers had been withdrawn from September 1, the decision to withdraw the vehicles given to medical officers of health, assistant revenue officers and other field officers had been dropped, top official sources told The Hindu on Sunday.

``As the elections are scheduled to be held this November, the revenue officers of the Mahanagara Palike, especially the assistant revenue officers are engaged in election work. They need to go round the City on election duty. We can think about withdrawing the vehicles given to them only after December this year,'' the sources said.

``Now that the Mahanagara Palike has launched several citizen- friendly schemes, it is all the more necessary that the officers have vehicles,'' the sources said.

``The Self Assessment Scheme (SAS) of property taxes, Swachha Bangalore and Simplified Khata Scheme (SKS) introduced this year need to be popularised. If vehicles from the officers are suddenly withdrawn, work pertaining to these schemes

will be affected'' is the officers' plea.

This has convinced Mahanagara Palike Commissioner, Mr. Ashok M.Dalwai, and he has reportedly directed that the vehicles can be withdrawn only after December. However, the vehicles given to assistant executive engineers had been withdrawn as they could function without vehicles, the sources pointed out.

It may be recalled that two months after the budgetary proposal was announced in April, the Mahanagara Palike had invited fresh tenders from travel agencies to hire as many as 120 vehicles for its staff. This had created a furore in the Mahanagara Palike Council meeting.

The Mahanagara Palike hires 120 vehicles every year for the convenience of its field officers to carry on work and spends Rs.13.14 lakhs on vehicle charges per month. Though the Mahanagara Palike hired all the 120 vehicles from one travel agency till now, it (Mahanagara Palike) thought it was appropriate to invite tenders and hire only 10 vehicles from an agency in every zone.

The Mahanagara Palike began hiring private vehicles in 1997 from Ananya Travels. The number of vehicles has increased from seven to 120 in the past three years.

However, due to largescale complaints from officers that the agency was not sending vehicles on time, a panel to frame guidelines, invite tenders and allot zonal vehicle contracts was set up. After deliberations, the number of vehicles has now been reduced from 120 to 86. This has enabled the Mahanagara Palike to save over Rs.5 lakhs.

The Mahanagara Palike has at present 360 vehicles, including light and heavy vehicles. This apart, it has hired an extra fleet of light vehicles for its Health Department and garbage collection. It now wants to restrict use of office vehicles to a select few by introducing ``pooling of vehicles'', according to the sources.

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