Hawkers cleared, BEST bus operations resume on curtailed route

After mid-day calls out BEST’s spinelessness, transporter ropes in BMC, police to clear hawkers, restore curtailed Dadar-Worli bus route

The BEST undertaking on Tuesday morning took the help of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the city police to clear all the hawkers affecting the operation of its buses at Dadar west station. The action follows mid-day’s front-page report, ‘Hawkers ate our bus route: BEST’ on Tuesday which stated how for the first time, the BEST undertaking on its official social media account, had admitted that it temporarily curtailed a route due to proliferation of hawkers. 

Today, M C Jawale Road at Dadar west outside railway station has been cleared for all bus operations and the bus route A-118 from Dadar station to Worli is operating from its regular originating point. The BMC and police were asked to clear the hawkers crowd to ensure that the bus operates from the origin point,” BEST spokesperson Manoj Varade said on Tuesday.

The BEST got the road cleared on Tuesday morning

BEST operations outside the crowded the Dadar station west had been affected due to Ganpati festival crowds. BEST officials had said that negotiating a bus through such crowded streets was a very tough challenge. They said this was the only location where during peak shopping season, such temporary curtailment of the route had to be done, to ensure safety of pedestrians and also it was a risky affair for drivers to reverse in crowded places.

BEST General Manager Lokesh Chandra said operations on the affected route were restored by 7.15 am.

Commuters said they were happy with the change for the day, but Dadar is always a crowded area, and hawkers are an industry there and the situation will be difficult to sustain for long.

“The hawkers here have been there much before my birth and Dadar has always been like this. It is always difficult to evict them. I will not be surprised, if in a few days after the matter the forgotten, the bus route is permanently shifted from here citing some other technical reason,” Shekharchandra Pawar, a senior citizen and commuter said.

Actor Khurshed J Lawyer, a resident of Dadar, said, “Thanks to mid-day, the issue was resolved in time. This is what is needed from a responsible public undertaking. Shamefully, it was unfathomable how the BEST could not approach the supposedly unaware police or the BMC. Everybody is well aware about why and how illegal hawkers and activities flourish across Mumbai, whilst the citizens suffer silently amid complete lawlessness!”

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