Mumbai: The BEST undertaking will be bringing 7,000 mini, midi air conditioned buses to the its fleet. As a part of this, on Monday 500 mini buses were brought on wet lease by the administration.
On Tuesday the proposal for bringing another 500 midi AC buses on wet lease was approved. These buses will be brought by January. The drivers for these buses will be provided from the company who is supplying the bus, while there will be no conductor in these buses.
Sunil Ganacharya, member of the BEST Committee, said that the administration is keeping the workers in dark. Another member, Anil Kokil also demanded to disclose the administration.
On this, Surendra Kumar Bagde, General Manager of BEST, said that the driver of the buses would be on rental basis by the supplier of the bus. So it was clear that there would be no conductors in the bus.
These buses will be brought on lease for 10 years. BEST will give Rs 69.48 for per km to Shree Maruti Travels, according to which total Rs 1667 crore will be giving to the bus supplier by the BEST.
Opposing the proposal, BJP leader Sunil Ganacharya said, “The BEST bus transports 70 passengers at a time at a charge of Rs 83 per km. Then how come BEST is ready to pay Rs 70 for carrying only 35 passengers and the administration is ready to pay Rs 70 per km?”.
