BEST agrees to hike wages

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking agreed on Tuesday to raise wages for its 42,000 employees. The deal will cost the bus service Rs402 crore in the next five years. The wage hike will be a burden to the loss-making BEST, which averages an annual loss of Rs175 crore, acknowledged BEST general manager Swadheen Kshatriya.

The pay hike will impose an additional burden of Rs46 crore annually on the undertaking, said BEST committee member Ravi Raja.

Kshatriya said BEST would try to make up for it by increasing the number of trips, and by placing more advertisements on the buses as well as the bus shelters. He said BEST would also try to increase the volume of passengers, and try to reach newer areas and townships.

The pay hike follows the recommendations of the Pay Revision Committee in 2001. The agreement was not implemented till 2006, and the pay hike will account for the unpaid raises of these years.

Employees will get an increase of Rs600 to Rs1,350 in the basic wage with effect from June, said Surendra Bagalkar, BEST committee chairman.

Sharad Rao, general secretary of BEST Workers’ union, termed the decision as historic. But for BEST, which now faces increasing competition from auto rickshaws and taxis in an atmosphere of increasing fuel costs and thinning numbers of commuters, the wage hike will be bitter.