A fresh controversy has erupted in the Municipal Corporation (MC) after Senior Deputy Mayor Rakesh Prashar raised serious objections over the alleged use of private taxis by senior officials despite availability of newly purchased government vehicles.
In a letter written to the Municipal Commissioner, the AAP leader questioned what he termed as “unnecessary expenditure” from the civic body’s already strained treasury and demanded that hired taxis be withdrawn soon.
According to the letter, two Toyota Innova vehicles, (PB 10 HS 9777) allegedly being used by Tapan Bhanot (PCS) and (PB01F6677) by Harveer Kaur (PCS), were operating as private taxi vehicles, despite the MC having its own fleet of official vehicles.
The Senior Deputy Mayor pointed out that the civic body had already spent nearly Rs 70 lakh on purchasing of new Innova Hycross vehicles (bearing registration numbers PB10HK3500 and PB10JY7878) for official use.
Besides, another Innova Crysta vehicle (PB10 K5656) is stationed at the Mayor’s camp office, while PB10FF3500 is attached with the Commissioner’s camp office.
Questioning the logic behind continuing with hired taxis, Prashar said public money should not be wasted on parallel vehicle arrangements when government vehicles were available. He urged the Commissioner to deploy official vehicles for officers and discontinue the use of private taxis to reduce the financial burden on the corporation.
The letter further demanded that the available government vehicles should be sent to the workshop, if required, to complete all formalities and ensure their proper utilisation, instead of allowing hired vehicles to continue operating at the cost of taxpayers’ money.
MC Commissioner Neeru Katyal said: “We are using the vehicles judiciously and have to take vehicles in pool as earlier there was three joint commissioners and now we are having four, so we have added one more vehicle”.
