For the past 20 years, Radheshyam Soni, 49, a resident of Bhayandar who works for a private construction contractor, has been relying on Mumbai’s Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses to travel from Bandra railway station to his workplace, Tata Colony, just 3 km away. He says the waiting time has tripled from 10 minutes to half an hour, forcing him to adjust his schedule. “I changed my timing from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. to avoid long queues, but I still have to wait for half an hour for a bus.”
In spite of the daily struggle, Mr. Soni continues to use the bus service due to its affordability. “A bus ticket costs ₹5, while shared autorickshaws charge ₹20,” he says.
Delayed services and long queues are common at bus stops across the city, from south Mumbai to the suburbs. Dhanshree Pawar, an accountant, experiences this first-hand during her 2-km commute from Bandra East to Aranya Colony on bus no. 316. “The bus doesn’t arrive on time, causing buses next in the schedule to run late, leading to overcrowding.”
Delays and overcrowding aren’t the only issues that BEST, an autonomous body under the city’s civic corporation that caters to 35 lakh people daily, is grappling with. Commuters have also complained about irregular bus timings, low frequency, and discontinuation of routes.
BEST officials have attributed the inefficiency in its services to a reduced fleet of 3,182 buses and severe traffic congestion due to increased vehicles on the road. “Despite scheduling buses on time, traffic congestion and poor road conditions have reduced bus speeds, causing delays. We’re managing with the current fleet, but additional buses will be added soon to resolve the issue,” says a BEST official. The undertaking’s general manager, Anil Diggikar, appointed six months ago, did not respond to requests for comment on the issue.
The dwindling bus fleet is causing concern among commuters. Nidhi Pednekar, 27, a local journalist who travels around the city on buses for work, notes that busy routes like Dharavi to Mazgaon have seen a significant dip in buses.
BEST’s fleet comprises 1,070 buses owned by it and 2,112 taken on wet lease. However, by 2025, around 700 BEST buses will be scrapped (each bus has a 15-year validity), leaving only 220 buses by 2027.
BEST had adopted the wet-lease model in 2019 to cut costs. It pays ₹45-₹50 per km to private contractors for operating each bus for a fixed monthly distance of 6,000 km.
In comparison, BEST incurs ₹105 per km for running its own buses, which cost ₹50 lakh (diesel) and ₹1.2 crore (electric) each.
Vidyadhar Date, convener of citizens’ group Aamchi Mumbai Aamchi BEST, urges the government to purchase new buses. “The reduction in buses has severely impacted lakhs of daily commuters.”
Privatisation fears
Citizens’ associations worry that the increasing reliance on wet-lease buses will lead to privatisation and erode public transport facilities. As per a memorandum of understanding inked with Mumbai’s civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), BEST was supposed to maintain a fleet of 3,333 buses. However, it failed to do so due to a mounting deficit and lack of financial aid, according to an official from BEST’s engineering department.
Mumbaikars have criticised the Maharashtra government for its poor management of BEST and allege that the introduction of wet-lease buses is a “systematic attempt to dismantle BEST and pave the way for privatisation”. They claim that such actions are a ploy to wind down BEST so that its landholdings can be opened up for commercial exploitation and it fails to pose stiff competition to metro services.
Urban planner Hussain Indorewala points out that the State government’s transportation policy prioritises car-based infrastructure and metro projects. “Funds are allocated for projects like the coastal road (₹15,000 crore), but none for buses,” he says.
Former BEST employee and secretary of BEST Kamgar Sangathan, Ranganath Satavase, says the government is eyeing the assets of BEST, which has over 300 acres, 27 depots, and 55 bus stations. He says several depots, including Deonar, Wadala, and Ghatkopar, have already been handed over for redevelopment.
However, BEST considers the wet-lease model necessary to lower expenditure and mitigate financial struggles as it has a deficit of over ₹3,500 crore, according to officials from its accounts department. They say funds from the BMC are not enough to bridge the viability gap and purchase more buses. BEST suffers a significant monthly loss of ₹180 crore despite earning ₹2 crore per day as it incurs expenses of ₹240 crore on average per month, they add.
In its ₹9,041-crore budget for 2023-24, BEST had showed an overall deficit of ₹2,000 crore and later sought assistance from the BMC. The civic body made a provision of ₹928 crore for BEST, which has 28,000 permanent employees, in its budget presented in February.
Critics argue that wet leasing may appear cost-effective on paper, but it doesn’t account for BEST’s fixed costs, which remain unchanged. Permanent employees and overhead expenses persist, despite wet-lease buses bringing their own drivers. “This makes wet leasing less sensible,” says an official.
Furthermore, delays in delivering wet-lease buses have exacerbated BEST’s struggles to meet rising demand, casting doubts on the effectiveness of this cost-cutting measure.
In 2022, a tender was issued for procuring 2,100 wet-lease buses, but only 243 were delivered by August 2023. About 250 double-decker buses were also ordered by BEST, but only 50 were delivered.
Downfall of BEST
Officials believe that the downfall of BEST began in 2010 owing to a combination of factors such as fleet shrinkage from 4,500 due to ageing buses and lack of new purchases, overstaffing despite reduced operations, mounting gratuity payouts for retired employees, and increasing operational costs. Ridership has also witnessed a decline from 40 lakh in 2010 to 35 lakh, they say.
Mr. Satavase, however, refutes overstaffing as the primary issue, attributing BEST’s rising deficit to the cessation of cross-subsidy from its electricity division in 2005, which previously offset losses. Since then, deficits have mounted, and profit-oriented policies have led to privatisation, reduction in services, and fare hikes. He also points out that Section 134 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 obliges the BMC to subsidise BEST’s annual deficits.
To tide over the crisis, citizens’ associations and workers’ unions have demanded a robust fleet of 6,000 buses, stressing the need for reliable public transportation in the country’s financial capital.
Published - August 09, 2024 06:24 am IST
