The officials' aura of authority seemed somewhat wanting minus cars with the red light on top. Bureaucrats arriving in their personal vehicles were screened by the guards at the secretariat gate and allowed in after they showed their pass. Among them was principal secretary to the chief minister, Adarsh Kishore, who was dropped to the secretariat by his son in his Honda City. Some officers were driven to the office by their wives, some others by their sons. Most drove in their Maruti 800s or Santros.

By afternoon, about 80 official cars had been surrendered and taken to the state motor garage. Interestingly, all the vehicles were old and in poor condition. The officers, who have been given the option of retaining theirofficial car if they paid for its fuel and maintenance, seem to have chosen to do so if the cars were new and well-maintained.

And many in the officialdom have chosen to stall what was supposed to have come into effect from today. Special secretary general administration, Purushottam Agrawal, was as yet unaware of the number of vehicles owned by the state government. ``It is too early to say,'' said Agrawal when contacted in the evening. ``There are many departments and each one maintains records of its vehicles. There is no compiled figure with us. We can tell you when they send us the number of vehicles with them and the number of vehicles they have to keep for their officers,''. He said others said there were about 350 official cars in Jaipur. The total number of cars surrendered was not known till late evening.

The well-received decision of the Gehlot government may fall prey to the deviousness of the powerful interests involved. It was meant to be a money-saving measure and a gesture to send out apositive message among the people at large. But now, the minister of state under whose charge the state garage falls, Rajendra Chaudhry, says the government was considering grant of vehicle allowance, ranging from Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 a month, to the officers.

The drivers have a better idea of the methods authorities adopt to bypass rules. ``Even earlier, the cars were meant only for official use. They put a false entry in the log book to show some official purpose, like using the car to attend a meeting or something and used it for their personal purposes,'' said chief of the State Motor Garage Union, RD Bairwa.

The secretariat officials will have a pool of 40 cars. Overall, the car pool in Jaipur will have 100 cars for use by officers. The number of cars in chief minister's pool was said to have gone up. There used to be one car for him at the official residence. Now there would be four. This was in addition to the cars for security and other staff.