Trouble on BEST deck

Friday’s incident of a BEST double-decker bus turning turtle is a wake-up call the city’s iconic public transport service cannot afford to ignore. Such an incident was bound to happen, considering the lack of quality drivers and poor maintenance of these buses, which are a legacy of the British who had modelled them on the lines of the London buses.

Double-deckers, unlike regular buses, have stabilisers that keep the vehicle upright while cornering. Elsewhere in the world, double-deckers, which continue in service for reasons of heritage, are put through regular, stringent tilt tests. In Mumbai, even basic maintenance is poor, leave alone tests and trials.

There is a larger issue here. The latest report card on the country’s public buses has ranked the BEST as the second highest loss-making body with an increase in accident rates as well, reflecting on the poor quality of drivers. Passenger numbers too have declined by a lakh over the last year, a significant dip.
The administration has ideas to improve services, but the problem is political interference, which does not allow the undertaking to be run professionally. In fact, the BEST is becoming more like the Indian Railways, with every corporator getting a new route sanctioned to his locality and taking pride in it. The buses are literally falling apart, and while the fleet has swollen by about 1,000, the number of personnel to operate them has remained the same, leading to negligence in maintenance and mandatory trials and tests.

It is high time the BEST, already bleeding and further burdened with a loan,  is revived in a professional manner, given the increasing need for reliable public transport in the metropolis.