BENGALURU: While people who are battered by successive droughts are being exhorted to practice austerity, the netas who preach it are not caring much to practice what they preach. The state government has purchased 13 new cars for use by MLCs amid the resource crunch to take up drought relief works.
The 13 Maruti Swift Dzire cars have been purchased at a cost of about Rs 1 crore for use by MLCs when they are in Bengaluru. The cars would be under the administrative control of the Legislators’ Hostel(LH).
When asked about the purchase of new cars for MLCs when the state is reeling under drought, Chairman of Legislative Council D H Shankaramurthy said, “Many old cars in our fleet were recently auctioned as they had completed the one lakh kilometre limit guideline set by the government for their replacement. Some of the cars had logged more than 2 lakh kms and needed frequent repairs and expenditure on maintenance.”
The MLCs can use these cars within Bengaluru city limits when they are in the city and would be charged a tariff of `8 per km, he said.
According to sources in the Council Secretariat, there are 25 cars at the LH which were purchased a few years ago for use by MLCs and about 10 of them were auctioned recently.