With the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) still feeling the heat of one of the longest workers’ strikes in history, union member Jagnarayan Gupta on Sunday demanded the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) bail out the cash-strapped undertaking. He hit out at the BMC for not utilising its ₹69,000-crore fixed deposits (FDs) for a bailout.
In a session titled, ‘On the BEST struggle’ at the Mumbai Collective on Sunday, Mr. Gupta, a member of the BEST Kamgar Sanghatana and Aamchi Mumbai Aamchi BEST campaign, outlined the background to the recent strike. “The population of Mumbai is increasing but the number of buses, the number of passengers is decreasing. Slowly, BMC wants to get rid of its responsibility towards BEST. In Delhi, there are protests against private buses (people want public transport) but in Mumbai, BEST is being weakened systematically,” Mr. Gupta said.
Mr. Gupta went on to explain how the fate of buses depends on a cost recovery index. If a bus’s index is below 40%, that route or bus is considered unviable. He claimed this was the reason BEST had discontinued 115 bus routes and 270 air conditioned (AC) buses.
“But the MMRDA-bought AC buses have a cost recovery index of 23% despite buying each bus for more than ₹1 crore. That money could have been given to BEST… If one BEST bus is taken off the road, 60 people will be left without transport. If 60 people start using two-wheelers, those will take up much more space, result in traffic jams and air pollution,” Mr. Gupta said.
He went on to ask how the municipal commissioner can say he won’t give a single penny to BEST “despite having fixed deposits worth ₹69,000 crore.”