The decision was taken as the BEST had to, yet again, take a loan of Rs 250 crore from various banks to pay off salaries to their 42,000 employees on August 10.
The BEST Undertaking on Monday passed the proposal to merge their budget with Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The decision was taken as the BEST had to, yet again, take a loan of Rs 250 crore from various banks to pay off salaries to their 42,000 employees on August 10. This decision is an important first step to ensure that BEST comes out of its financial mess.
“We approved the decision of merging our budget with Mahanagar Palika’s budget,” said Anil Kokil, Chairman, BEST Committee.
On August 7, the unions representing the employees went on a day long strike, which coincidentally was also BEST’s anniversary. Withing the next two days, BEST approached various banks for a loan. “We approached banks for this short term loan of Rs 250 crore,” said SK Bagde, General Manager, BEST Undertaking.
Sources said that now the anticipated losses for 2017-18 has gone from Rs 565.74 crore to Rs 590.24 crore. Their total losses have surpassed Rs 1,900 crore as of July this year. The idea of merging the two budgets was first mooted in March, when the issue of payment of salary getting delayed first came about. As the employees got their February salaries after almost 20 days, this idea was mooted.
The BEST's fleet of buses has shrunk to 3,700 buses, and so has their daily passenger count to 28 lakh. The Committee is also alleging that the administration is sitting on the funds received to get new buses for women passengers. The state government has provided Rs 10 crore for Tejaswini buses for women passengers but there has been little development.
“The government has already paid Rs 10 crore to the administration so that process of procuring these Tejaswini buses can begin. But there has been no development since then,” said Sunil Ganacharya, member, BEST Committee.
As per plans, 300 'women-only' buses will be procured across the state that shall be operated in major cities and towns like Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivali, Thane and Nagpur. In Mumbai, BEST will be operating them. These buses are being bought at a cost of Rs 30 lakh each.
This is being introduced to tackle the difficulties faced by the women commuters. There is no clarity yet on how many of the 300 buses Mumbai would get. The BEST already runs women-only buses on many routes in the city. According to a BEST official, currently it runs 74 trips of ‘ladies special’ buses and 60 trips of ‘ladies first’ buses, in which women commuters get first preference for boarding at the point of origin.
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