Last Updated on March 12, 2022 at 2:20 pm
Jammu and Kashmir State Transport Corporation (JKSRTC) rented four wheelers from the market, instead of purchasing new vehicles. Order (SRO) 157 of 26 April 2001, the government departments had to hire or rent trucks from JKSRTC only, as required. The government departments also need to take No Objection Certificate (NOC) from JKSRTC before renting from private players. The Corporation also had the flexibility of Contract Hiring of Trucks (CHT) from private transporters based on the demand of goods carriage vehicles. But this order was abolished in March 2018.
Test check of Traffic Manager (Load), Jammu revealed that the corporation had not assessed the requirement of trucks for the carriage of goods for the period from 2014 to 2019. Even the total demand could not be furnished to Audit by the unit in Srinagar, as per Early Times.
As per reports, during the year 2018-19 purchase of new 63 trucks, the Traffic Manager (Load), Jammu could not supply adequate vehicles as per the demand in Jammu division. It also came to fore that corporation rented trucks from private groups in Jammu whereas did not use its own trucks and which remained idle at Srinagar.
Only 19 percent demand from its own group of vehicles was served by the Jammu unit of the Corporation during 2014 to 2019 for supply of trucks required for carriage of goods. Despite engaging private contractor for meeting the huge requirement (74 per cent), there was a shortfall of seven per cent in meeting the overall demand. Also, 36,805 truck days were available, only 1,211 were deployed by JKSRTC in Srinagar in 2018-19.
It is pertinent to mention that 36 to 100 trucks of Corporation were not used for want of drivers in April 2018 to March 2019 in the office of the Traffic Manager (Load), Srinagar which comprised 19 to 50 percent of the available operative truck fleet of 201 in the unit.
