Mumbai: Furore as BEST decides to rent its drivers to govt babus

As internal letter leaks, trade union threatens strike; undertaking says its fleet has dwindled and the new leased buses come with their own private drivers

In a decision that has angered a trade union, the BEST Undertaking has decided to rent out its skilled bus drivers at Rs 900 per day. Following the leak of an internal letter on the issue, the trade union has threatened to launch a major protest to “stop the injustice”. BEST chairman Ashish Chemburkar said that it was for the benefit of drivers and will be done with caution. 

This is madness. We will be taking out a major demonstration across bus depots in Mumbai on October 12 and following this, the protests will be intensified. We will not back out,” BEST Workers’ Union leader Shashank Sharad Rao said.

“In a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the trade union and the then municipal commissioner in 2019, the BEST undertaking was expected to maintain a fleet of 3,337 self-owned buses. The BMC was expected to release money to buy new buses for those scrapped, but the BEST committee has not sent any such proposal as a reminder to the civic body. Due to this, the BEST’s own fleet has come down to 1,800 buses, the rest being on lease, which is unfair,” Rao said.

“As per traditional practice, the BEST transport wing has maintained a ratio of 1:9 for buses, which means nine employees per bus, including maintenance and other staff. With 23,000 employees and bus numbers coming down to 1,800, there are about 7,500 employees that now seem excess, who will possibly be rented out now. No political party pays attention to BEST workers’ genuine issues and now it has become a matter of existence for the Undertaking,” he added. Of the 7,500 employees, 6,000 are drivers.

The BEST has a fleet of over 3,000 plus buses, but most are wet leased. File pic/Satej Shinde

‘Best we can do’

BEST Chairman Chemburkar, however, said it was not right to criticise the decision. “These employees are sitting at bus depots without work and instead of giving them odd jobs, the Undertaking has decided to make use of them as per their skill. A number of government and semi-government organisations, private entities require skilled drivers. Our trained personnel will be offered to them as per shift timings with no additional loads. I will ensure that they will not be misused or overloaded with work. But this is the best we can do to keep the revenue going and help the drivers,” he told mid-day.

The BEST has a fleet of over 3,000 plus buses, but most are wet leased. The wet leased buses come with their own driving staff and maintenance responsibilities. This renders the BEST depots and staff useless.

As per guidelines of the proposal drawn up by the BEST, the plan is to maximise the use of existing staff and they will be sent on hire only on stipulated conditions. 
“Since they will remain BEST employees, the staff sent on deputation will maintain all the rights of filing appeal and other legal processes as a regular employee has. If leased bus staff is sent on deputation, they would be given charges as the respective contract with their firms,” the plan said.
Transport expert speak

“When wet leasing of buses was accepted I knew some such move would come. What do you do with excess manpower? MTNL/BSNL did not have much problem as most of their manpower was old (over 50 yrs) so they could be given VRS. In our country when we want to create more jobs having such schemes which make your manpower redundant is not a correct step,” AV Shenoy, senior transport expert, Mumbai Mobility Forum and Mumbai Vikas Samiti said.

Rs 900 
The proposed charge for hiring a BEST driver

BEST budget

. The BEST Undertaking on Friday presented a deficit budget of Rs 2,236.48 crore while providing an outlay of Rs 695.18 crore for capital expenditure for the fiscal 2022-23. However, BEST has lined up several measures to improve working and get more revenue.

. Amenities listed in the budget document include plans to convert its entire fleet into electric buses by 2027 with electric charging points at 55 places in the metropolis.

. As reported by mid-day, about 1,900 fully electric buses will be inducted and will make up for 50 per cent of BEST’s fleet by 2023.

. Of these, 1,400 will be 12-metre AC electric buses, 400 will be 9-metre AC electric buses and 100 will be mini-AC electric buses.

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