The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) Undertaking plans to seek compensation from the authorities constructing the Metro corridors for damaging bus stops and affecting their advertisement revenue.
BEST committee chairman Anil Kokil said the undertaking lost ₹25,000 of advertisement revenue from each damaged bus stop. “Other authorities like the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation do not allow us to even dig trenches on the road until they recover the charges from us. Then why are we suffering losses like this?” Mr. Kokil asked.
He suggested that BEST must demand at least ₹35 crore as damages.
The issue was raised by BEST committee member Rajesh Kusale, who said that over 70 bus stops had already been damaged and another 100 bus stops would be affected in the ongoing Metro work. “Apart from loss in ad revenue, the Metro work has also disrupted the bus schedules by causing huge traffic jams, and harmed our passenger traffic,” Mr. Kusale said.
BEST general manager Surendrakumar Bagde, however, said the utility must not make such demands in public interest, since Metro was a public project. He contended that it was not just buses, but all vehicular traffic, that had been affected by Metro work.
