With the heat rising over its beleaguered fleet of air-conditioned King Long buses, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) administration has a perfect plan up its sleeve to cool tempers again. It has initiated a lengthy process of procuring 200 new AC buses to ply on city roads. As per the proposal, BEST is now looking at international or national manufacturers who would be willing to supply such a huge number of AC buses.

Not the king of buses: There are 282 King Long buses in the 4,700-strong BEST fleet. However, at least 60 such buses remain off the road each day, for one reason or another. File pic