BEST slashes fares for private vehicle parking at its depots

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) on Tuesday slashed the fares for parking of private vehicles at their bus depots, after the Mumbai Parking Authority issued a directive on July 17.

The new monthly charges to park private vehicles for 12 hours a day will be Rs 2,000 for buses; Rs 3,630 for trucks; Rs 1,540 for cars and taxis; and Rs 660 for two-wheelers. Earlier, the BEST’s monthly charges were Rs 5,000 for heavy vehicles, Rs 4,000 for light vehicles and Rs 3,000 for two-wheelers.

In order to attract Mumbaiites, BEST also split the duration of parking into four slots: 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours and 24 hours. If you are parking for three or six hours, you will have to pay the fees daily.

In June 2015, BEST had allowed parking of private vehicles up to 12 hours, but did not get a good response owing to the high parking fees.

The BEST panel, in its proposal, claimed that the new parking fees will benefit it, as it will reduce congestion on roads and increase the speed of its buses. The panel members asked to implement this move on a trial basis for six months.

Meanwhile, the BEST committee also gave nod to purchase 37 new non-AC midi or mid-sized buses at a cost of Rs 11 crore, under the Tejaswini Scheme which is meant for ferrying women passengers.

“Operate these buses from all depots, instead of limiting their operation from Colaba and Dadar depots,” Anil Patankar, BEST panel chairman told the administration.

Surendrakumar Bagde, general manager of BEST said that BEST employees will be provided proper training to maintain these buses.

During the discussion on a proposal about the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) the BEST administration had signed with the BEST Workers’ Union on June 11, the panel members were upset that the labour union has threatened strike from midnight of August 6 stating that the administration was not complying with the terms they had agreed to.

Senior committee member Sunil Ganacharya from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) questioned the legality of the MoU and asked if it would be recognised on par with a registered agreement. The panel members also questioned the administration about the financial assistance of the civic body, besides raising concerns about the shortage of staff.

Srikant Kawathankar, member from the BJP said that currently, there was a shortage of 979 conductors and 834 drivers in the BEST owing to which not all of its buses are on the road.

“The BMC has given us Rs 300 crore until now, of which Rs100 crore was disbursed in July,” Badge said.

First Published: Jul 24, 2019 15:26 IST