Do not be surprised if you find lesser buses on road in the coming days. The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking will scrap 362 buses in 2017-18 which shall curtail the total fleet to 3,337 by March 2018 from the existing 3,750. The BEST is already under financial trouble with heavy losses on its heads, plus the total number of daily passengers has dropped to 30 lakh and the undertaking is finding it difficult to attract people who are using share-taxis and autorickshaws.
With deficit hitting Rs 880 crore for the year 2018-19, the BEST cut down the procurement of 303 new buses from Tata to 185.
This curtailment was due to the heavy cost of Rs 100 crore which was being paid by the BMC. The BEST recently added six electric buses at cost the of Rs 10 crore to their fleet which is running on short routes.
"The turnout of buses has dropped considerably and the fleet is unable to complete 22-24 per cent of the daily kilometres. The main reasons are absenteeism of drivers and conductors and traffic jams wherein buses get stuck on road and thus these buses are stuck inside depots," said S Kavtankar, member, BEST committee.
Another reason why existing buses are stuck inside depots is because the electronic ticket issuing machines are not working.
Several machines out of the 9,000 are lying in depots as they have reached their codal lives. The demand for buses have dropped with Metro and Monorail coming up.
