BEST proposes leasing private buses, reducing employee allowances

The management of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) on Tuesday has presented the budget for the year 2018-2019. The budget was presented by the General Manager of BEST, Surendrakumar Bagde before the BEST committee.

Several new measures including cutting down on employees’ allowance and procuring of private buses on lease in large number has been proposed in it.

During the meeting to discuss the budget, it was put up that the deficit of current budget is at least Rs 880 crores. The BEST officials said that the deficit could be reduced to Rs 228 crores after taking some important steps which are proposed in the current budget proposal.

In the budget meeting, measures including increasing the number of bus services on routes having maximum passenger footfall and procuring disabled friendly buses were proposed.

“We are planning to procure handicap friendly buses which has a facility of a wheel chair. This facility can be of great help to disabled commuters,” said a BEST official. The BEST management also plans to procure at least 800 private buses on lease. This has been proposed in order to cut costs and reduce the deficit amount.

During the year 2017-2018, at least 202 buses are likely to get scrapped and at least 273 buses would be scrapped by 2018-2019. “These scrapped buses would replace the private buses. Out of these 800 private buses, at least 200 buses would be air-conditioned, 200 buses will be regular and the remaining 400 buses will be designed especially for the disabled buses,” added the official.

During the meeting to discuss budget, BEST officials said that the Rs 880-crore deficit could be reduced to Rs 228 crore after taking some important steps which are proposed in the current budget