For official misuse only!

For official misuse only!

We waited for schools to reopen after the holidays to check if government officials had mended their ways! But they continued to misuse official cars to drop and pick up children as Bangalore Mirror reporters and photographers found out

Hemanth Kashyap & M K Ashoka
Posted On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 at 12:36:43 AM

On Monday, the city’s schools reopened and we did another sting only to discover that top IAS, IPS, Income Tax and NHAI officers continued to send their children to school in official cars. A Bangalore Mirror sting on December 18 had provided graphic evidence to this effect. Today we provide more evidence. Seems like our bureaucrats are so accustomed to the perks of office that they don’t want to change.

Most babus consider official privileges their birthright. Just before the schools closed for Christmas holidays,
we exposed a lot of high-ranking bureaucrats from various government departments for using official cars to ferry their children to school and back. On Monday, we caught many of them at it again. This is how our second sting proceeded.

We found cars belonging to various government departments including Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and BBMP. There were also vehicles bearing the insignia of Government of Karnataka and Government of India that came and dropped children at the school.

Some of the drivers, clearly acting on instructions from their bosses, dropped the children a little distance away from the school.

ONCE BITTEN, NOT SHY
One unexpected and interesting fallout of our sting was to discover how deep the resentment ran among ordinary folk regarding misuse of official cars. Amazingly, the guards at the neighbouring houses not only immediately recognised us but contrary to what we anticiapted, were very supportive of our efforts. They also informed us that most of the drivers of the babus’ cars were very happy with our report and that we should continue the good work. The guards explained that the drivers were especially unhappy over the fact that after driving the children to school they had to also fetch their school bags and generally act as menials. “The children think they are the masters and do not even say thank you to the drivers”, the guards told us.

The smaller kids are picked up at noon whereas the older ones get picked up at about 2 pm. The drop and pick up involves not just the driver but two staff members as well. Some locals informed us that vehicles belonging to different government departments wait for a long time around noon to pick up kids admitted to nursery classes.

OFFICIAL REACTION
K R Shashidhar, Secretary Department of Personnel Administrative Reforms (DPAR,) said that there was a very strict law in force as far as using government vehicles for personal purposes is concerned. There is a provision to use official cars but only under certain conditions. Moreover, the officials are required to pay a fixed amount of money when they do so. Some of the officers sincerely follow this rule but there are instances where officers go on misusing government vehicles without paying money, Shashidhar said. “We carry out checks continuously to contain the misuse of vehicles. There is strict guideline for the officers regarding the distance they travel in official vehicles and they have to abide by it”, he added.