Hyderabad: The Hyderabad and Cyberabad police forces are facing a strange problem. They have dozens of new vehicles, but few personnel to drive them. Hundreds of vehicles are lying unused in the city.

The Telangana state government had sanctioned hundreds of new vehicles for the police in a bid to improve the maintenance of law and order and traffic in the city to boost Brand Hyderabad.

To drive these vehicles, the government allowed the police to recruit 3,400 home guards. The idea was to entrust the new high-end range of vehicles to properly trained home guards.

The problem is that it will take almost two years to recruit the 3,400 of them.

Both the vehicles and the recruitment of home guards were cleared at the same time. The police now has more than 2,000 patrolling vehicles.

The police is using all the home guard drivers at its disposal as well as regular police personnel — who have to do both patrolling and policing — to drive the vehicles.

That, however, is not enough. A large number of vehicles, both new and the replaced ones, are lying unused at the City Armed Reserve headquarters at Petla Burj in the city.

These vehicles include buses, Innovas and Tata Sumos which were meant to be used for patrolling and normal police duties. It is estimated that there are at least 500 vehicles parked at the Petla Burj grounds.

Police sources say that they can only interview 60 to 70 home guards a day. The process of recruiting drivers for all the sanctioned vehicles is bound to take time.

When asked about the driver shortage, the Cyberabad police commissioner, Mr C.V. Anand, explained, “We had an immediate need for 100 drivers, of which 40 to 50 have been recruited. But the entire process of recruiting 3,400 drivers even if started from today will take two years to complete.”