Mumbai BEST employees announce strike, bus services likely to be affected

South Mumbai’s power supply and civic bus services are likely to be affected as the joint action committee of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) employees has announced an indefinite strike from Thursday midnight in support of their demands.

The committee is pressing for a host of demands, including merging the corporation’s budget with that of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The BEST Sanyukt Kamgar Kruti Samiti, an action committee comprising 12 unions representing BEST employees, announced this at a rally in Dadar on Thursday evening and said their long-pending demands were not resolved within the stipulated time.

BEST is the second largest public transport provider in Mumbai after the suburban rail network.

In addition to operating bus services, it supplies electricity to more than 10 million consumers in the island city. Around 25 million passengers travel in BEST buses every day.

The civic enterprise currently operates a fleet of around 2,700 buses, of which only 243 are owned by BEST, the rest are leased from private carriers on a crewed lease basis.

The key demands of the employees include merger of the BEST budget with the BMC budget, one-time settlement of statutory dues of retired employees, implementation of Seventh Pay Commission recommendations for 2016-2026, cancellation of contractual arrangements in the transport and electricity department and absorption of staff in leased buses to BEST.

The committee also demanded recruitment for vacancies, operation of 6,000 BEST-owned buses, promotion of eligible employees and rejection of privatization and public-private partnership (PPP) models in the undertaking.