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Public transport buses in Mumbai have been off roads as employees of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) undertaking have been on strike since Tuesday demanding higher wages as per the 7th pay commission, and other benefits at par with employees of Mumbai’s civic body.

The strike comes at a time when the BEST’s financial health is bleak with service levels plummeting and a steep drop in passengers.

ThePrint asks: Has Mumbai ignored BEST transport system or is bus drivers’ strike an overreaction?



BMC must focus on BEST

Ashish Chemburkar

Chairman, BEST Committee and member, Shiv Sena

The BEST’s balance sheet is empty and its workers are demanding higher salaries. We have tried holding talks with union leaders telling them about the situation and asking them to reach a compromise, but they are not willing to.

We understand the pain of the employees, ultimately they are our own people, but we can find a solution to the BEST’s problems only by coming together. The administration is ready to sit across the table and discuss.

The BEST is a unit of the Mumbai civic body, but the two entities have separate budgets.

One of the demands of the union is to combine the BEST’s budget with that of the BMC to strengthen the BEST’s balance sheet. The BEST committee has already considered this request and a decision is to be taken ultimately by the municipal commissioner and the state government, with whose advice the municipal commissioner works.

There are a number of reforms that need to be taken to improve the BEST. Earlier, the service had nearly 4,500 buses at its disposal. Now, we have just 3,237 buses of which only about 3,000 ply while the rest are usually under maintenance.

The number of passengers has dropped to 20 lakh a day from more than double that number earlier. Certain routes have been curtailed due to Metro construction work. An increase in the number of taxi and auto-rickshaw stands, two-wheelers and services such as Ola and Uber have further affected the BEST’s ridership. The number of rickshaw and taxi stands needs to be curtailed.

The BEST should also get smaller buses to be able to ply in small, narrow lanes. It must design and start more ring routes. The BEST committee has accepted the need for all such reforms and passed a number of resolutions, but it ultimately boils to money.

As per law, the BMC should help out the BEST, look into reasons for losses and help with reforms.

BMC is India’s most affluent civic body with more than Rs 55,000 crore in fixed deposits

Sunil Ganacharya

Member, BEST committee and member, BJP

Providing public bus transport in the city is the responsibility of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). If there is any issue, the BMC should look into it first. If that’s not happening, then the state government should step in and give directions.

The BMC is the country’s most affluent civic body with more than Rs 55,000 crore in fixed deposits. For the BJP-led state government to look into the BEST, the civic body should give exact reasons why it is not being able to do so, and lack of funds definitely can’t be the reason. There should be political intent to achieve this.

The strike is not an exaggerated reaction and one must know its background to understand why. In 2017, there was a one-day strike in August as salaries were getting delayed and retired employees too were not getting their final payments on time.

Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray called a meeting and promised employees that their salaries will come on time and they will also be issued a bonus, urging them to call off their strike. But, over a period of time salaries started getting delayed again and the bonus too was taken back in stages. Anger had been building up for the past one and a half years.

In December last year, union leaders organised a vote in which 95 per cent of the employees said that the administration be given a chance to resolve their issues, failing which they should go on a strike.

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray held talks after the second day of the strike, but didn’t give any strong assurances, saying the administration will look into their issues.

Meanwhile, invoking of the Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act and issuing notices to striking employees to vacate their official homes angered employees further.

It is the ruling party, the Shiv Sena, and the BEST administration, that are solely responsible for what is happening.

The name is BEST, but the transportation system has completely collapsed

Ravi Raja

Member, BEST committee and leader of opposition, Congress

Mumbai has definitely ignored its public bus transport and the state government and municipal corporation are responsible. Public transport is an important aspect of transportation in any city. The BEST has been the second lifeline of the city after railways.

But, somewhere, the local political dispensation and administration has ignored the BEST’s transport division. It is sinking in losses, there is a huge deficit, and the government or the local administration needs to give some subsidy to help sustain it. Earlier, the BEST could cross subsidise the transport division with the BEST’s profitable electricity division, but it is not permitted to anymore.

The name is BEST, while the transportation system has completely collapsed.

I am with the people of Mumbai because they cannot be inconvenienced in any way.

But one has to really think about why the situation has come to pass and BEST employees have had to strike for five days in a row. For the last five years, the BEST has not been able to pay retirement benefits, gratuity, provident fund and so on to employees.

Salaries are not being given on time. All this has led to a deep-rooted insecurity among employees and that is why the unrest has reached this stage.

Unless BEST’s transport division is properly addressed, these kind of strikes will continue. Whatever the solution this time, it should be a permanent one.

Bus transport should be treated like a public utility such as education or roads, and some loss should be accepted in principle

Ashok Datar

Chairman, Mumbai Environment Social Network

The BEST strike has not been visibly apparent on the roads this time.

It hasn’t been as visibly disruptive as a rail employees’ strike would have been. The reason is that a lot of the middle and upper middle class have abandoned buses and moved to Ola, Uber, rickshaws and taxis.

We have ignored the BEST in a colossal manner. If we analyse investments in infrastructure projects from 1998 till 2023, they have been about Rs 105,000 crore, but buses have not got any of it.

Yes, we have bought a few new buses but they have been replacements and the total number has reduced overall.

Meanwhile we have sold space at a lot of BEST depots and made money of Rs 200-300 crore. There has been no investment or focus on new ideas.

The number of bus riders has dropped from 44 lakh to about 25 lakh per day partly due to the reduced number of buses and fewer drivers.

All the new infrastructure projects, a coastal road, elevated roads, are car-centric.

We have hurt buses the most by failing to regulate parking.

This huge subsidy to private cars is toxic.

A comprehensive mobility plan drawn for Mumbai recommended 17 bus lanes. We had implemented one dedicated bus lane in Bandra-Kurla Complex successfully and ran more than 120 buses per hour. If our highways—the Eastern Express Highway, Western Express Highway, the Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road, the Santacruz Chembur Link Road—were designed to accommodate bus lanes it would have been a tremendous success. But, we are not even thinking about bus lanes.

Despite talking about it for years there is still no electronic system to give information on when the next bus is expected to arrive, or display boards within buses giving information about connecting routes.

Given all this, the strike was a natural outcome.

Bus transport should be treated like a public utility such as drainage or education or roads and some loss should be accepted in principle. A 50% fare rise, as is being suggested now, will only reduce users and worsen the situation.

Saying that BEST is a loss-making venture has become a very convenient narrative for administration and politicians

Madhav Pai

Director, Embarq India

To some extent, what is happening is a political fight. But, over the years, saying that the BEST is a loss-making venture has become a very convenient narrative for the administration and politicians to serve their own interests.

This narrative allows them to push land development projects of the BEST and monetise depots in deals worth crores. So, instead of doing anything positive, they have stuck to the ‘loss-making’ narrative. The primary interest is not in BEST, but the land it owns.

The city has changed a lot. A lot of people work in areas such as Lower Parel and Worli, but the BEST has done nothing to adapt to the changing needs of the city.

There is no BEST terminus in Parel yet.

The BEST used to serve two types of routes—station feeders and longer routes. The long routes have now become too difficult to efficiently cater to due to increased congestion, while auto-rickshaws have completely taken over the station feeders. This is partly because the government has done nothing to give priority to buses on roads.

One must simply accept the fact that the BEST will need about Rs 800 crore-worth subsidy every year to perform efficiently and improve, and the BMC should ideally give it this sum and set parameters for improvement. It is their job to ensure that the subsidy does not pay for inefficiencies but for improvements.

The BMC has a Rs 3,000 crore budget for road works annually. Can’t the civic body spend Rs 600-800 crore on bus transport?

The BEST will need a subsidy if it has to run as a public service. Otherwise, we are eliminating choices for the poor.

We are focusing not on mass transit, but class transit.

By Manasi Phadke, associate editor at ThePrint.

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