Hyderabad: With no drivers, tractors in Gram Panchayats kept idle

Hyderabad: The tractors being purchased by the Gram Panchayats (GPs) are kept idle at their offices as there were no drivers to run them and the purpose of their procurement has been getting defeated.

The state government ordered purchase of tractors by all the GPs of the state and most of them have procured them. Still some of the small GPs which do not have enough revenue are yet to procure them.

The tractors have been purchased to transport the garbage being collected by the sanitation staff to the dumping yards. They also could be used to transport the saplings of Haritha Haram programme and other material.

However, most of the tractors are not being used as there were no drivers to run them. Most of the GPs are yet to appoint the drivers to the tractors as their finances did not allow for this.

Revenue of many of the GPs is less than Rs 10 lakh a year and they were unable to give salaries to the drivers. The tractor drivers get about Rs 15,000 every month in private activities. They get about Rs 1.80 lakh every year.

As the GPs have to pay the power bills every month, procure sanitation material, maintain street lights, and pay salaries to the sanitation staff, paying Rs 1.80 lakhs to tractor drivers would be a big burden on them.

At the same time the rules of the Centre and the state governments on spending the grants did not allow them to appoint drivers.

The government has decided to allow giving Rs 8,500 per month to the workers of the Gram Panchayats like sanitation and other workers. The tractor drivers are not coming forward to work for that salary.

When the issue was taken to the notice of the government it has directed the GPs to use the services of the multipurpose workers of them. Any one of the staff of the GPs could be used to run the traffic.

But the multipurpose staff was not coming forward to run the tractors. They argue that a tractor driver would get Rs 15,000 per month and they would run the tractors only if the same amount is paid.

With this the GPs are in a quandary over appointing drivers to the tractors and they were kept idle in their office compounds. As they could not use their own tractors the GPs are using the private ones for sanitation and other purposes.