It’s not new that BEST is in serious hot water. The Undertaking has for long been in dire straits, going so far as to allow full body advertisements on every bus in the fleet to canceling all AC buses. But what is the reason? Lack of innovation? Yes.
The oldest transco in India has been unable to keep up with the times, forcing it into this situation. Why?
Simple. The lack of innovation due to toxic competition, with toxic being the key word. You’ll soon realise why it’s important.
BEST is an autonomous agency of the MCGM. Thus, the MCGM isn’t liable to bail out BEST if it ever needs to. Other transcos, such as DTC, MTC, BMTC, NMMT, PMPML, all get bailed out by their municipal bodies/state governments.
Further, due to BEST’s core competition being NMMT and TMT, both of which are sarkari bodies, innovation won’t happen.
1. BEST should not be an autonomous agency but should come under BMC fully, atleast Transport division, similar to TMT, NMMT etc.
*If point no. 1 is not possible:
2. BEST buses (also other Transcos) should be exempted from Toll but BEST should continue to collect 1 rupee extra because of the fuel wasted at Toll nakas.
3. Collecting Rs. 750 per month from each vehicle owner, out of which Rs.500 will go towards BEST, and Rs. 250 towards Local Trains. (Offtopic, Season Ticket cost should be increased to 40 times the single journey ticket cost.)
4. It would be better if the toll nakas are shifted outside the Salsette island and Navi Mumbai. Instead of toll, a tax should be collected per month or per year basis, from all vehicle owners in MMR (till now, only Thane and Navi Mumbai residents had to pay toll to enter Mumbai or vice versa, but now everyone has to pay).
**The 3rd and 4th point might decrease the usage of private vehicles in Mumbai.
5. Reintroducing existing AC buses on AS-310, AS-415, AS-4, AS-2(peak hours only), AS-525(peak hours only) etc.
6. Scrapping remaining AC buses or converting to Non-AC.
7. Procuring Volvo 8400 AC buses.