Mumbai: The precaurious Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) lately has been depending on the wet lease of buses and the fleet acquired by the BEST has decreased. The ridership of the BEST buses was 33 lakh last week, which stayed stable despite 280 mini BEST buses being off roads, reported Mumbai Mirror. This highlights that despite the reduced number of buses and increased wait timings, the demand for BEST buses by Mumbaikars has not been affected.
To meet the city's demand and complement the rising network of metro, suburban train services and road connectivity across Mumbai and MMR, there is no doubt that the undertaking needs to address the requirement of deploying more BEST buses on roads.
The population of Mumbai is around 2 crore. Considering the ridership, 3,337 buses are necessary, however, the number of fleet acquired by the BEST has declined by 1,000 as of today. The BEST depends more on wet lease of which 2000 buses are on the roads, the Mirror report said.
Speaking with Mumbai Mirror, BEST General Manager Anil Diggikar said that the undertaking has issued notices to the existing contractors to speed up delivery of more buses. The BEST expects 80 more buses by end of this month and 160 by end of the year.
The transport activist of Mumbai have been protesting against the privatisation of essential services and demanding that BEST should procure its own buses to allow citizens safe and reliable travel.
In August, the drivers of the wet lease buses (Daga Group) had gone on strike after an alleged assault on a colleague by a wet lease bus starter. Initially, the drivers protested the incident but later expanded their demands to include salary increases, Diwali bonuses, and additional leave provisions. This protest led to partial disruptions in bus services from Deonar depot for two days.
The incident highlighted the increasing dependency of BEST Undertaking on private contractors.
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