Mumbai: BEST strike called off on ninth day, bus services resume

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport union decided to call off the bus strike in the city after 9 days on Wednesday evening The BEST buses will start plying on roads again with immediate effect Union leader Shashank Rao saidThe announcement came after the BEST workers union earlier Wednesday agreed to call off the stir after accepting the 10step pay hike to be granted to them as an interim measure by the civic transport undertakings managementEarlier in the day the High Court has asked the Best union to withdraw the bus strike within one hour after thecourt appointed a mediator a retired Justice of High Court to negotiate mattersTuesday morning was no different to the previous eight days with commuters in Mumbai continuing to suffer as the BEST bus strike entered the ninth day with workers union rejecting the managements 10step increment proposal to end the stalemateOver 32000 BEST employees have been on strike since January 8 over their various demands including pay hike revision of pay grade for junior level employees and merger of lossmaking BESTs budget with that of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC The HC had on Tuesday directed the BEST workers union to take a final decision on the withdrawal of its ongoing strike and inform the court on WednesdayBEST bus workers cheer outside Mumbai Hight court after getting the news that the strike has been called off Pic Suresh KKThe direction came after the BEST told the court that it was willing to implement the redressal measure suggested by the state governments highpowered committee on granting an interim pay hike to its employeesThe highpowered committee headed by chief secretary has recommended among other things that subject to the strike being called off as an interim measure workers be granted a 10step increase in salary for about 15000 employees in a timebound manner However BEST workers union leader Shashank Rao rejected the proposal on TuesdayThe union was adamant on its demand of merging BESTs budget with that of its parent body BMC A senior BEST official said the government was seriously considering the demandThe highpowered committee is giving serious thought to merge both the budgets A decision on this is likely to come soon an official said Meanwhile commuters continued to face hardships due to the strike even as the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation MSRTC deployed its buses to minimise their woes A BEST driver apologised to commuters for the inconvenience but also appealed them to understand the problems faced by the bus employeesWe have been financially distressed since the last few years We had no option but to resort to this strike But we are hopeful that this will end he said Some commuters also took to social media to express their anger Palpable anger among daily bus commuters against BEST union amp their ongoing strike Common sentiment quit the job if you are not happy with the wagesterms coming from daily wage earners amp lower middleclass commuters Overheard inside NMMT bus which have stepped up service a harried commuter wrote on TwitterThe state government had last week invoked the Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act MESMA against the striking employees But it has so far not taken any stringent action except for sending them notices to evict the houses provided to them by the undertakingThe BEST has a fleet of over 3200 buses which crisscross the metropolis and also operate services in the neighbouring Thane district and Navi Mumbai It is the secondbiggest mode of transport in Mumbai after local trains which ferry over 80 lakh passengers every dayWith inputs from Rajendra B Aklekar and PTICatch 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 updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever