PANAJI
Come April 1, nearly 1,500 vehicles owned by the State government and allocated to different departments will be condemned and instead of buying new ones to replace these, it will resort to hiring from private vehicle owners through the Kadamba Transport Corporation.
The scheme, which is currently being worked out by officials, is aimed at providing an earning avenue for local youth who own vehicles besides saving the government money it would otherwise have spent to buy new vehicles.
The KTC will hire these vehicles and be the nodal agency to allocate them for use of individual government departments on a need basis. The owners from who the vehicles are hired will be paid their rent on a monthly basis.
Government sources said, the vehicles hired will be fitted with live tracking devices and the rents owed to the owners will be computed on the basis of a formula which takes into account the number of kilometres run and idle hours of the vehicle.
Currently, the State government owns about 5,000 vehicles and more than 15,000 of these are over 15 years old and road unworthy, which will be scrapped.
The entire scheme is already being worked out by officials and is expected to be made public by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant in his upcoming budget speech.
Officials however are already working out the nitty-gritties of the scheme so as to implement it from April itself.
