Senior committee members of the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking have expressed their discontent with the management for not inviting any minister from the union government for inaugurating the electronic buses on Friday.
BEST procured 26 e-buses from TATA motors, under union ministry's FAME India scheme. On September the union ministry had allotted 40 buses to BEST in an attempt to promote eco-friendly commute, of which 26 buses arrived in the first phase in last week of November. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and state minister of tourism and environment, Aaditya Thackeray on Friday flagged off these buses alongside members of BEST management.
However, committee members of the BEST hailing from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) refrained from participating in the flagging off ceremony.
"We have requested the BEST management to invite at least one minister from the union ministry in the flagging off ceremony but the management paid no heed to our request and went ahead with the ceremony," Prakash Gangadhare, a senior BJP corporator and BEST committee member told FPJ.
He further mentioned that the inauguration event was planned at the last minute and invites were circulated only a day before.
"The buses were procured under the scheme offered by the central government, there's no credit of the state government in this matter. The state was only cutting BEST's budget by putting forward an excuse of revenue shortage" Gangadhare added.
Another senior committee member, Sunil Ganacharya had earlier raised this issue in the committee meeting held on earlier this Thursday.
"A minister from centre should have been invited to the event. We requested the management to postpone the event by at least one week but they didn't pay any heed," Ganacharya stated.
