04 January,2017 06:40 AM IST | | Shashank Rao
The Shiv Sena and BJP are worried that they will lose brownie points just before the BMC elections. Last March the BEST Undertaking announced that 303 new buses will be inducted into their fleet, for which the BJP-Sena led BEST Committee had passed a proposal
The BEST already has few buses, which is why the number of passengers has also reduced. File pic
The Shiv Sena and BJP are worried that they will lose brownie points just before the BMC elections. Last March the BEST Undertaking announced that 303 new buses will be inducted into their fleet, for which the BJP-Sena led BEST Committee had passed a proposal. But now there is a delay in procuring the buses, which has made the saffron parties anxious.
The BEST Committee approved these buses around the same time CM Devendra Fadnavis launched 25 hybrid buses. These hybrid buses were to be procured by the MMRDA. Tata Motors are manufacturing the 303 buses for the BEST. The delay is in the manufacturing.
Sources in the BEST Undertaking said that as per plans, the prototype was supposed to come by December 2016 and gradually after some paperwork and trials, 100 buses were to run on the road by January. These single decker non-air-conditioned buses were to be procured in phases and until March all 303 buses were to be procured.
Few buses on the roads
But this delay has changed everything. "It is a loss for Mumbaikars as the BEST hasn't kept its promise. The fleet has already depleted and so are numbers of people using the BEST buses," said Ravi Raja, BEST Committee member.
"The people are forced to wait at bus stops for long time as the number of buses have dropped," said Suhas Samant, member, BEST Committee.
"There is a delay in procurement of these 303 buses. Tata Motors has informed us there is a delay in manufacturing. We expect the first vehicle to come in two weeks and the remaining by March," said Jagdish Patil, General Manager, BEST Undertaking.
