TS govt to dump Toyota to please Tata HYDERABAD: No more Toyota Innova vehicles for the Telangana State police force? In an apparent bid to woo the Tata group which has offered to set up a 1,000 MW thermal power plant in Telangana, K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Telangana government is likely to drop the idea of purchasing more Toyota Innova vehicles. Instead, it is likely to opt for Tata vehicles.
The Chief Minister has directed the State police to 'examine the utility' of Tata vehicles so that a bulk order could be placed with Tatas.
Top government sources told that though the finance department had cleared the proposal to purchase 1,550 Toyota Innovas for use of State police, of which already 300 (about Rs 12 lakh each) have been purchased and distributed between Hyderabad and Cyberabad police commissionerates, the government is likely to make a U-turn and dump Innova for Tata vehicles.
The move, it is learnt, came hours after Tata Power offered to set up a 1,000 MW thermal power plant in Telangana which will commence commercial production in the next two years. Representatives of Tata group had met Chandrasekhar Rao at Secretariat.
Besides the coal-fired power project, Tata has also offered its services to add solar power capacity and also establish a decentralised distributed generation system using solar power for rural areas. It will also set up roof-top solar units and energy plantation on waste lands for biomass power.
'The Chief Minister has directed the State police to examine the utility of Tata vehicles. Representatives of Tata group will showcase the vehicles to a group of senior police officials after which orders will be placed,' they said.
In the next few days, Tata representatives will give a demo of Tata Aria (Rs 14.89 lakh approximately), Tata Movus (Rs 7.22 lakh) and Tata Sumo Gold (Rs 5.98 lakh approx) to the police officials who would then finalise one of the vehicles.
News Posted: 21 October, 2014
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