Shillong, March 22: The organization Hynñiewtrep Integrated Territorial Organization central body today sent the memorandum to the Chief Secretary of Meghalaya Smti R V Suchiang to complains on misused of official vehicles in the state.
In the letter HITO urge the Chief Secretary to direct all the department heads that employees should not use government vehicles for personal tasks, like shopping and ferrying children to school, etc.
Precedent for this exists in other states and they feel it is only right and proper that official vehicles should be used only in the pursuance of official duties in Meghalaya as well.
It is incongruous that a state where the government frequently makes use of the excuse that it does not have sufficient funds to pay teacher salaries or run an ambulance service on its own, can afford to waste precious public funds on the private use of government vehicles.
It has come to HITO notice that the rampant use of government vehicles by government employees and members of their families is due to the non-maintenance of logs by government drivers.
The maintenance of logbooks recording the movement of vehicles viz. date, time, place and purpose and periodic inspections of these logbooks will help keep a check on the misuse of said vehicles and we request you to issue a direction to this effect to all government departments.
However, those officials who are eligible to use the vehicles for private purposes should be exempted from the restriction on the understanding that they pay for the privilege. Here, the need for maintaining a logbook again becomes apparent.
As department heads are responsible for the monitoring and upkeep of vehicles, to further ensure that vehicles are not misused they should have to pay 50% of the fuel expenses in case of a violation of government rules.
HITO asked the Chief Secretary to issue direction from the office will surely curtail excessive and inadvertent financial expenditure for the government your concern and initiative for the said good cause, the letter was sign by the president Mr. Donbok Dkhar President and Mr. Wanbun N Dkhar General Secretary.
