Kerala police department on vehicle buying spree

Kochi: The Kerala police department had purchased from 2001-02 to 2017-18 nearly 5,000 vehicles, including high-end category costing above Rs 20 lakh.

It continued even as the fate of vehicles already in possession of the department largely remained unaddressed.

A Right to Information Act data shows that in the 2001-02-2006-07 period, it purchased 899 diesel jeeps having a lifespan of at least 15 years, but they are not on the roads nowadays.

The 65 Toyota Qualis models bought in the 2001-02 are also not seen in use any more. Even during their utility period, it purchased 95 Innova cars between 2007-08 and 2014-15.   But most police stations are still handicapped by lack of vehicles. If those bought in the past 17 years, 4,876 in total, are equally distributed amongst the 471 stations, each one of them could have at least ten.

They include 411 Mahindra Bolero, five Mahindra Scorpio, 442 Endeavour, 78 Daylo, 411 Tata Sumo, and 25 ambulances.

In 2017-18 up to June, the department had bought five Innova Crysta and 30 Mahindra TU 30, besides 36 other models.

A source said it did no proper audit of vehicles disposed of before deciding on new purchases.

According to government guidelines, a certificate from the mechanical department concerned is essential for the disposal of a government vehicle based on public auction.

A proper audit will provide a clear indication of the wasteful expenditure by the department in the purchase of new vehicles.

The RTI records show that it has four bulletproof cars. But VIPs of high-security category seldom use these vehicles comprising one Ambassador and three Tata Safari models nowadays.