Citizens’ group Aamchi Mumbai Aamchi BEST (AMAB) on Tuesday raised concerns over the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking’s plan to run buses only on feeder routes to the forthcoming Metro stations, while demanding dedicated bus lanes as well as restoration of scrapped routes. AMAB highlighted these demands and recommendations while releasing a report of a Jan Sunwai (public hearing) it had held on March 1, 2019.
“The Municipal Commissioner made a good move by accepting to reduce bus fares but fare reduction is only one aspect to improve the bus service. We are concerned about the decision to turn BEST into a feeder service as it has been a means of core transport of the city,” Hussain Indorewala, co-convenor of the AMAB said. The BEST general manager as well as the Municipal Commissioner have on multiple occasions spelt out the plan for the BEST to cater to the Metro corridors as a means of last-mile connectivity. Vidyadhar Date, convenor of AMAB, said one needs to only look at London, which has a robust bus system with several buses running all night long, despite having a vast underground Metro network.
Members of the AMAB also highlighted that by scrapping long routes, lakhs of people in the city would be affected as Metro fares would be much higher than BEST fares, which are at ₹1 per km. They compared BEST’s fares to the fares of Mumbai Metro One and Delhi Metro, which are ₹3.50 per km and ₹2.40 per km respectively. Retired judge Hosbet Suresh said depriving people of affordable and comfortable travel was a violation of human rights.
Filmmaker Arun Nalawade, who was a BEST employee nearly 15 years ago, said the key to BEST’s success was improving the speed of its buses and not look at scrapping long-haul routes. “As a citizen, I am not in favour of stopping an existing public service in any shape or form. I don’t believe in creating conditions that will destroy one public service to ensure the success of another. One way of increasing the speed of buses could be providing a priority lane for them.”
Among the other demands highlighted in the report was the restoration of routes that had been scrapped by BEST on account of them being poor performers. Mr. Indorewala said BEST buses were among the country’s inclusive transport systems and hence, scrapping of routes hit women the hardest.
