CAG flags Kochi Corporation’s idling vehicle fleet bleeding public money

A shocking 74.12% of vehicles owned by the Kochi Corporation in Kerala have been found idling – awaiting fitness certification, repair, or auction in cases where they were no longer serviceable.

Out of the Corporation’s 143 vehicles, 72 had to be auctioned off as unserviceable, while another 34 were off the roads for want of fitness or maintenance. In comparison, the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation had 38.18% of its vehicles idling, Kozhikode 27.06%, and Thrissur 17.65%. These were among the key findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report on local bodies for the period 2020–21 to 2022–23, tabled in the Kerala Assembly earlier this year.

The situation was even worse with the 116 vehicles purchased by the Corporation for waste movement. Of these, only 11 were in running condition. As of April 2024, 55 were unserviceable, 34 were either garaged or lacked fitness certificates, and 16 were set aside for auction.

Among the 34 vehicles, 14 had been idling for more than a year, while others had been garaged for periods ranging from two months to seven years. Of the 55 unserviceable vehicles, 20 four-wheeler trucks had remained unattended for periods ranging from nine months to nine years in various yards. Another six trucks purchased in 2014 were reported for Fitness Certificate Tests (FCT) between December 2015 and December 2016 but languished in workshops until 2018, eventually sustaining flood damage and becoming unserviceable.

Trucks purchased in 2014 went out of production within a year, leading to a shortage of spare parts. Workshops refused to undertake repairs, forcing the Corporation to initiate auction proceedings. The audit report observed that the Corporation should have ensured the availability of models and spare parts for a minimum of 15 years. Prolonged idling was cited as the primary reason for vehicles becoming unserviceable before completing even a decade of use.

Commercial vehicles are initially granted fitness certificates for two years, after which they must be renewed annually. A test check of 27 vehicles revealed delays ranging from one-and-a-half months to nine-and-a-half months at various stages once the health wing reported them for FCT. Worse still, there were delays of up to 44 months in the payment of bills.

Delays

The audit noted that delays in processing files for fitness tests and repairs, coupled with non-payment of dues to authorised workshops, resulted in vehicles lying idle for prolonged periods. This led to irreparable damage and significant loss of public money. The report further observed that delays in repairing vehicles used for waste management forced the Corporation to incur additional expenditure on hiring vehicles.

The CAG also found delays of up to 10 years between the date vehicles went off-road and the date of their auction. Timely condemnation has been recommended since prolonged idling, it warned, leads to deterioration in scrap value, further compounding losses.