Mumbai: The BEST committee has ordered the general manager to depute a technical official for the study tour to Australia instead of going himself. Members protested Surendrakumar Bagde’s plan to go in for a five-day visit when the government directive is clearly to depute a transport professional, who would absorb the ideas and implement it home.
They said the GM being an IAS officer would be transferred and hence there is no point in sending him. “Last year, the GM had visited London, but never submitted a report,” said committee member Rajesh Kusale on Tuesday. Opposition leader Ravi Raja suggested that the GM instead go to Bangalore to see how a good road transport works.
Mr. Bagde tried to explain that the BEST is not losing any money since the interest of a corpus of ₹10 lakh sent to the Association of State Road Transport Undertakings will be spent for the trip.
After hearing the objections, committee chairman Anil Kokil directed the GM to depute a technical staffer of his choice for the tour.
