A day after reduced fares, BEST faces bus shortage

With the BEST Undertaking reducing its minimum fare to Rs 5 beginning Tuesday morning larger crowds were seen clamouring to hop onto one The administrations fears however soon came true as it faced an acute shortage of buses to cater to the increased footfallThe BEST committee on Tuesday also cleared a proposal for new buses About 200 mediumsized new AC buses are expected to arrive in the city after August in phases and a total of 400 will be in by November 2019 The total target is to take the fleet to 10000The BEST is in a mess today because the tender to procure more buses has been delayed by 16 months and with the fare cut the situation has turned worseBEST committee member Sunil Ganacharya saidThe transport body has a fleet of about 3000 buses as of today of which about 2900 are in service dailyThe tender issued for new buses has several exceptional clauses like they wont run with conductors they wont run on Sundays and holidays and other such making it a difficult deal for a public transporter The contractor might run the buses for his private use on those days opposition leader Ravi Raja saidRamesh PawarBEST General Manager Surendra Bagade said the tender for buses was first floated in February 2018 The matter was taken to the court by the union and hence got delayed We have been trying to improve the system for the past two years with technological advancement etcAbout 6000 buses have been ordered in the first phase In the latest tender on June 12 bidders were requested for about 400 AC mini buses on a wet lease Bagade addedClarifying on the wetleased buses not running on Sundays and holidays he said that every bus will require a days maintenance and it may not necessarily be Sunday but any one day as per our planning and suggestion to the companyCommuters delighted with the fare dropCommuters expressed their delight at the development saying this was the first time in history that the government had reduced a public transports fareBipin Bhavsar 64 who has been taking the BEST for years called it really good newsMaitreya Sharma 20 too echoed similar thoughts Trains can be inconvenient at times and the mega block makes it worse so lower bus fares certainly help Adding on Jignya Parab 25 said It will be especially beneficial for people who cannot afford autos and cabsBharat PednekarOthers like Bharat Pednekar 41 seemed unmoved by the development Its good news but I rather would recommend increasing the frequency of buses I wait for hours for oneRamesh Pawar 52 too seemed cynical Its just another government plan to make more people should take busesDipali KirpalaniAC buses finally fullMaitreya SharmaThe airconditioned buses running at Bandra were all running packed like never before on the first day of the fare cut The minimum fare of airconditioned buses has been slashed to Rs 6The BEST has a fleet of 25 such buses and connecting BKC with Borivli Powai and Thane The BEST had been earlier trying to make these buses popular by sending emails to corporate houses in BKC but the response never picked up much On Tuesday they ran full houseThe yellowcoloured hybrid airconditioned buses owned by the MMRDA and run on various routes including the BKC have been running in losses The buses were running full today on the very first day at Bandra The impact of lowering fare has been very good and it will encourage the use of public transport like never before Surendra Bagade BEST General Manager said10000Total number of buses the fleet will soon have as per BESTs target for the upcoming years200No of mediumsized AC buses to arrive around August 20196000No of new buses ordered in the first phase3000Total no of buses BEST currently has2900No of BEST buses in service daily across cityCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates