Greater Noida Authority pays rent on vehicles that's more than their cost
Greater Noida Authority pays rent on vehicles that's more than their cost
It seems the ghost of excess expenditure during Commonwealth Games has now come to haunt Greater Noida Development Authority (GNDA) too. 
Representative pic
For the authority seems to be in a fix whether to renew the contract of 20 Bolero vehicles that it had hired before the Games or simply buy new vehicles, whose cost is turning out to be much less than the rent that had been paid for them in the last 10 months.
Last year, before the Commonwealth Games, the GNDA hired 20 Bolero vehicles to be used as PCR vans. The rent of the vehicles, which included the cost of the diesel and salaries of their drivers, for 10 months (the vehicles were put in service from April last itself) came to around Rs.1.57 crore.
Interestingly, the market price of one Bolero (Non-AC) is around Rs. 5.5 lakh. The cost of 20 such vehicles would have been around Rs 1.10 crore only and the GNDA could have continued to use them in the subsequent years too.
The officials in the Authority feel that one major reason that such high bills came up after these vehicles were hired was due to lack of accountability. "Since these vehicles and their drivers were technically not part of the district police force, there was hardly any accountability. These drivers seemed to be more interested in stealing the fuel than anything else. There must be a strategy to check all this in future," said a senior GNDA official.
"The bills have been exorbitant but last year we had to act fast as Commonwealth Games were around. Buying vehicles would have taken a long time, so we opted for hiring them. This year we are still not sure. Several rounds of meetings with police officials and the contractors have been held so far. We are negotiating the rates and are hopeful of renewing the contracts of the vehicles," said Akhilesh Singh, Deputy CEO, GNDA.
The rent contract of the vehicles expires on April 15. The 20 Boleros for which GNDA is paying the rent are part of the fleet of 40 Boleros that were sought by Gautambudh Nagar police and distributed equally among Noida and Greater Noida police forces.
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