These buses come with low-floor design, making it accessible for senior citizens, passengers with disabilities, and individuals using wheelchairs
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis (in blue jacket) flags-off a bus from Colaba bus depot. PIC/BY RAJENDRA B AKLEKAR
With an addition of 150 electric buses in its fleet, the BEST undertaking on Tuesday introduced tilting PMI class buses which have a kneeling feature, along with the low-floor design, making the buses accessible for senior citizens, passengers with disabilities, and individuals using wheelchairs. The undertaking inducted 150 buses with 115 of PMI-class and 35 of Olectra class.
Launching the buses at Colaba bus depot, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the bus fleet was slowly being upgraded with world-class fleet and directed the General Manager to look towards generating non-fare revenue. “In any public transport, 40 pc of revenue must come from non-fare revenue to sustain. The Maharashtra government and the BMC will offer all the required support, but BEST must come up with ideas to generate revenue,” he said.
Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde assured that the BEST will be provided with funds as and when required.
The BMC has already provided over Rs 3,400 crore as grants in the last few years while this year Rs 1,000 crore has been allocated for 2025-26. Senior officials said that they have already provided around Rs 500 crore to the BEST this year.
Of the 150 buses, 115 buses are from the manufacturing company PMI Electro Mobility and 35 buses manufactured by Olectra Greentech Ltd. While PMI has a lower floor height (400 mm) compared to the Olectra (900 mm), Olectra offers a greater driving range in a full charge (357 kms versus 289.18 kms). Both the vehicles come with modern safety and passenger convenience features like VTM, CCTV and Community Centre connectivity.
The new buses will be used to connect to suburban railway stations of Andheri (West), Jogeshwari (West), Kurla (East and West), Bandra (West), Kandivali (West) and Borivali (West). The buses will also connect Metro rail on lines 1, 2A, 3 and 7 to provide seamless last-mile connectivity to commuters. The buses will have the potential to cater to around 1.9 lakh more people.
Poorly co-ordinated function
While heavy rains played spoilsport at the function, leaving the media, attendees and top BEST officials without any shade or shelter, there was confusion about the number of buses launched. While Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said there were 157 new buses, the BEST note said there were 150 new buses inducted.
After the event, there was no demo about the new buses and its features to the media and PMI contractors were hurrying away to take the buses back to Anik depot.
150 buses jam south Mumbai in rush hour
After the event as PMI contractors hurried to get back to Anik depot, about 159 buses jammed complete sooth Mumbai in evening rush hour, leading to queues of buses at Regal junction and leading to major traffic jams amid heavy rains. The entire stretch from Colaba bus depot to Regal Cinema and ahead was a queue of these new empty buses going back to Anik depot among other regular buses and traffic.
Positive outlook, more buses soon
BEST General Manager Sonia Sethi said the BEST needs 7000 buses in its fleet to meet Mumbai's requirement. "By end of this calender year, 100 more e-buses will be added to our fleet.
“These buses too had come earlier but we have been careful and focused about training our drivers after the Kurla incident. We will induct buses only with fully trained drivers. There also have been problems with supply of buses with contractors and we are exploring all options to resolve the issue. We aim to make our entire fleet having e-buses," said Sethi. At present the BEST has a fleet of 2,609 buses which includes 298 buses from its owned fleet while rest are on wet lease.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
