Government maintains 76,000 vehicle fleet at enormous cost.

By: Staff Writer

March 27, Colombo (LNW): Government vehicles which are running at a cost of Rs. 300 per kilometre can be run at a cost of 100, a research paper submitted to the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Energy and Transport has revealed.

This was revealed according to the data of a research paper prepared by the Department of Manpower and Employment on “Public Resource Management” which was presented at the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Energy and Transport recently.

The research paper revealed that according to the statistics of the year 2022, government institutions own about 82,000 vehicles, of which about 76,000 are in running condition while around 5500 vehicles are not.

According to the research, the cost of driving one kilometre of a vehicle in running condition is approximately between Rs. 300 and Rs.500 and found out that if these vehicles required by government institutions are hired from the private sector on a rent or lease basis, it is possible to run a kilometre with Rs. 100 or less amount.

“If this process is followed by removing the state-owned vehicles, about 20 billion rupees of government expenditure can be saved,” the research revealed.

Taking this information into account, the Chair of the committee Nalaka Bandara Kottegoda recommended that a sub-committee be appointed under the Chairmanship of Yadamini Gunawardena to conduct a thorough study of this research paper and submit a report to Parliament.

There are 322 government institutions under Sri Lankan government. More than 95% out of them have their own vehicle fleet. In their institutions, the vehicle fleets has been managed by one of commissioners, by a director or a transport officer appointed by the head of the department.

Though there are large vehicle fleets belong to the government institutions, there are no proper fleet management policies required in an efficient fleet management.

There are about 60% – 70% of vehicles aged over lO years or 300,000km are used in active vehicle fleet without any proper replacement policy. This causes unnecessary repair costs and low reliability which leads to poor transport supply against demand.

Due to lack of proper preventive maintenance policies, vehicle repair and maintenance costs as well as downtime costs are increased.