Tourism dept mulls new Innova Crysta for Kerala ministers

Thiruvananthapuram: The tourism department has recommended that the State government consider purchasing new Toyota Innova Crysta cars for all ministers.

The finance department is currently vetting the proposal, which was submitted citing the deteriorating condition of the existing vehicles used by the ministers.

Recently, the car used by Finance Minister K N Balagopal suffered a tyre burst while travelling.

All the cars that are currently being used by the ministers were purchased during the previous Pinarayi government's tenure.

After 2019, no new cars have been purchased for the use of ministers. Most of these vehicles have covered a distance of 1.5 lakh kilometers.

According to the assistant engineer in-charge of vehicles at the tourism department, the vehicle of a minister is changed when it covers one lakh kilometres or completes three years.

However, the vehicles of various government departments are allowed to be changed only on covering three lakh kilometres or on completing 10 years.

There is no limit fixed for changing the tyre of a minister's vehicle. But for other government vehicles, tyres will be changed only if the vehicle covers a distance of 32,000 km or it gets punctured beforehand.

Existing cars to be repaired, given to various depts

With the purchase of new cars for ministers, the existing ones will be repaired and given to various departments for use by the tourism department as per the government's directive.

After the assumption of power by the second Pinarayi government, new cars were purchased only for the use of the chief minister.

Keeping in mind the security concerns, two Innova Crysta cars and a Tata Harrier car for convoy purposes were purchased for the use of the chief minister at a total cost of Rs 62.5 lakh.

As per the recommendations of the then DGP (Law and Order) Loknath Behera, the colour of these cars were changed to black from white due to security reasons.