Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Privatisation is not BEST policy
simply to ‘promote’ privatisation. Each time this revered model falters, the BEST management scrambles to apply bandaids, rather than restore BEST’s own services, which worked so well in the past.
In his latest budget, the municipal commissioner once again reiterated his commitment to “structural reforms” of BEST to reduce its reliance on the BMC. He also reduced the assistance to BEST from ₹1,500 crores in 2020 to ₹800 crores. The refusal of the authorities to acknowledge what is obvious is simply astounding. The BEST’s own data in the past showed that the cost per passenger kilometer was 19 per cent higher for private buses than for BEST-owned buses. If the sole mode of operation were to be public buses, BEST would spend significantly less than what it would spend to run a full fleet of private buses.
In other words, it is financially unjustifiable for BEST to shift to private operations, as it is doing at present. Recent experience shows, these so-called reforms have resulted in poor quality service, risk of accidents, and even risk to human life. This entire fiasco was predicted by citizen’s groups well before BEST began recruiting private players. And, as these problems are becoming increasingly inconvenient, BEST’s data is becoming less credible – the latest budget data is full of anomalies.
The BMC is the wealthiest municipal corporation in India, and has large reserves, including substantial reserves not tied to any specific purpose. Yet, it spends thousands of crores on maladaptive car-only projects like the Coastal Road. The problems of BEST can be easily overcome. In fact, the answers are fairly straightforward, and have been suggested by citizen’s groups and unions for many years: merge the BMC and BEST budgets, expand BEST’s own fleet to 6,000-7,000 buses, and subsidise operations. Do we want to revive an essential service in the form it has served the city so well? Or will BMC and BEST continue with this policy?