Mumbai: BEST struggling to stay on track, even as BMC allocates it only Rs 10 cr

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport BEST Undertaking which is trying hard to revive its fortunes increased its fleet from 3391 buses in 200506 to 4167 buses in 201415 But all its efforts have gone downhill as it failed to provide its plan for a Rs 100crore grant which was to be given by its parent organisation the BMC as promised last year The BMC allocated a mere Rs 10 crore in its annual budget as loan to the UndertakingThe BEST has hiked its fares constantly over the past couple of years to boost its revenue Yet the number of passengers per bus everyday is declining File picmidday looks at the health chart of BEST which is poor in many ways To begin with the fleet had grown from 3391 buses in 200506 to 4700 buses in 201011 after which they realised that the number of buses was too much to handle and cut down the fleet to 4167 buses in 201415 But on an average 300400 buses remained off roads due to maintenance workSadly utilisation of buses on the roads has been dropping over the past 10 years ldquoThe rising vehicular traffic and condition of roads are a major reasonrdquo said a BEST officialDeclining number of passengersCurrently there are only three routes that make profit This is also despite the fact that the BEST has hiked its fares constantly over the past couple of years to boost its revenue Yet the number of passengers per bus every day is declining year after yearldquoThe most common complaint is the waiting time for passengers at a bus stop There is no fixed time for buses to come plus the fact that our proposal of running dedicated lanes for buses hasnrsquot been approved We are working for technological advancements like getting to know the time of arrival for a bus but until more space is provided to our buses the delays will continuerdquo said a BEST officialRunning the buses has become a burden for the Undertaking which was spending Rs 30089 lakh annually on its fleet in 200506 This has risen substantially ndash almost double mdash at Rs 64868 lakh for running a fleet that has been cut down in size According to the plans made by BEST they will be reducing the fleet to 3900 buses by the end of this financial year In another two years additional buses were to be procured to take the total fleet to 4200What happened on February 8The BEST failed to provide its plan for the Rs 100crore grant The BMC kept a mere Rs 10 crore in its annual budget as loan to the Undertaking despite having a humongous Rs 37052crore budget for Mumbai There was a furore over this in a meeting on February 8 as the committee members representing different political parties asked the BEST not to accept this miniscule amount and return it Members also stated that instead of Rs10 crore the BMC could have simply waived off the interest on loanUsing the R100 crore the BEST was to procure 300 more buses after scrapping the older ones as per the initial plan ldquoThe new buses wouldnrsquot come for at least 1421 months as there has been a delay in obtaining this grant from us by the BESTrdquo said Yashodhar Phanse Standing Committee chairman of BMCPhanse claimed that until now the BEST has not stated their plans on how they will procure the buses and what they would do with the Rs 100 crore grant ldquoIn fact this seems to be a ploy to sabotage the Shiv Senarsquos prospects before the 2017 BMC elections and we demand an inquiry as to why these buses werenrsquot procuredrdquo added Phanse claiming that Jagdish Patil BEST general manager might be supporting a political partyBut Patil denied having political affiliations ldquoI want to make it clear that I have no political affiliations and I shall resign if proven guilty of being responsible for the BESTrsquos current state Any sort of inquiry can be made about the Rs 100 crore We were studying the type of buses needed for which tenders were also called in November 2015 for which only one bidder came forward We are now buying new buses after few manufacturers showed interestrdquo said PatilAs per the current status one manufacturer has promised to deliver the buses within 14 months while another will take another 21 months The BMC has promised to give Rs 100 crore only if the BEST shows their plans for utilisation of buses and betterment of Mumbaikarsrsquo commute which until now has only been declining