Mumbai: Ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) budget, the committee members of the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking has demanded help from the civic body to meet its target of acquiring 10,000 buses.
“We have a target of pressing 10,000 buses into service, on wet lease. BEST is in the midst of a severe financial crisis, and the civic body needs to help us,” said BEST committee member and Congress corporator Bhushan Patil.
Patil informed that the undertaking had procured 274 buses on wet lease and currently has a 3,337-strong fleet. However, he feels, unless more buses are added, it will not be possible for the transport undertaking to recoup its losses.
“BEST ridership increased to 35 lakhs after July 2019. But there is no room for profit, as the fares have also been slashed. Thus, to tackle the loss, BMC needs to help us with funds and innovation to tap into alternative sources of income,” stated Patil.
In the 2019 budget estimate, the BMC had proposed Rs 34 crore for the undertaking, which faced flak from the BEST committee members. Currently, the transport undertaking is facing losses to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore.
The leader of the opposition in the BMC and BEST committee member, Ravi Raja said that last year, the BMC had come up with the proposal of an Intelligent Traffic Monitoring System (ITMS), which however, did not fructify.
“The BMC proposes something but doesn’t follow through. The budget merger is the only possible solution to make sure the projects are directly under BMC surveillance,” said Raja.
Furthermore, he informed, the reason it is taking long to press more buses into service is because the undertaking is short of funds.
“The only way we can decrease the margin of loss is by pressing more buses into service and that will only be possible if we have strong financial backing. But BEST is completely on its own, thus it becomes time-consuming to bring in new buses,” said the Congress corporator.
