School children, senior citizens speak out against  Maharashtra government’s neglect of BEST bus network

 It  was an inspiring, learning, encouraging experience last evening.  People from different communities, languages, income groups, different corners of Mumbai  spoke the truth  to authorities. About the harrowing experience they were having with the  BEST bus service.It was once a service the city  was proud of and  is now driven into a crisis because of government policies.

 The most moving were experiences narrated by   school girls , they were articulate  and asked questions, why are we being denied basic services.

 It was their suffering that in a way made them so  resilient, they spoke to an unfamiliar gathering in an unfamiliar place with such confidence.

   One girl complained that if she managed to get into a crowded bus, her mother could not.

   First there was a long walk  from home to the bus depot, then a  long wait there in heat, some nearly faint because of the glare and loss of energy. , if you managed to cling to a bus you find that   the service is terminated midway, said Kashish Khan, an 8^th standard student  from Bandra east.

   Even with all precautions people  reach schools, colleges, offices, other work places late. Even share autos are not affordable and no alternative. Poorer people are more vulnerable,  bus stops are far away from their dwellings,   auto rickshaws  do not like to go there and charge hefty amounts. 

 The occasion was a Jan Sunwai, public hearing of  grievances,  organised by Aamchi Mumbai Aamchi BEST  at Mumbai Marathi Patrakar  Sangh in Mumbai.  On the dais listening to  the travails of citizens were  Gayatri Singh, lawyer, Prof  Sanjeev Chandorkar, who explains economics issues in simple terms to a wide section on social media, elsewhere, Anil Singh, senior journalist, and Ranganath Satavase, a former BEST  bus undertaking employee and participants in many struggles of employees.

 The middle class is badly  hit too and angry, this was evident in speeches by Yesha Merchant from Juhu , Sharmila Vas, Patricia D’souza and  Lalita Devnally from Bandra west.

 One of the most vociferous was Rupesh Shenolikar, he was well equipped with statistics and arguments with which he can take on any  official.

    Every one  was  deeply dissatisfied with privatisation, poor quality of service, breakdowns and fires of privately owned buses run by BEST.

    All were unanimous in opposing  redevelopment of   bus depots, past experience was very bad, developers had not paid  BEST for the land, some had  left projects half way, abandoned, desolate, in squalor.

       Shekhar Hattangadi, a Harvard-trained  senior journalist and lawyer, was highly impressed by the presentations, he sat through the proceedings for more than three hours  though he is recovering from a heart condition. It was also good to find in the audience  Dr Rakesh Kumar, a senior  environment scientist , who says  BEST buses are most  vital for   pollution control and later said to  me there were enough documents with the  MMRDA itself  which stress the importance of public transport  and its role in  reducing congestion and  pollution.

       The presentation by  36 people was preceded by extensive campaigning in  various parts of Mumbai to mobilise  the voices of common people.   Rekha George , TISS  professor and  AMAB  supporter, easily switched fluently to  Marathi  while announcing the names of speakes  when the need arose.

     The gathering was also addressed by  Hussein  Indorewala, deputy convenor,  Jag Narayan  Gupta, trade union leader, and others.

   Anil  Singh, senior journalist, lashed  out at the media  for not giving enough coverage to the  worsening plight of  BEST bus users. The same media spent columns giving publicity to Metro railway’s flimsy  work.

   He said judges should also experience the hardships of BEST bus users.  As a resident of Vashi he found that  a plot of land for a bus depot had been used for a  shining  commercial high rise building with some space left for  bus operations and it was  awaiting inauguration for the last several months.

     Gayatri Singh said the municipal corporation simply could not shirk its responsibility towards BEST  Undertaking, it was very much its part as provided in the  Act. The talk of a unified transport authority in Mumbai would further  reduce the independence of  the public sector .

   Sanjeev Chandorkar, a former BEST mechanical engineer, said the BEST budget should become part of the civic budget as had been done in the case of the railway budget being merged with the general budget.

 I heard the chief minister speak at YASHDA  in Pune at  the  75^th  anniversary of Pune municipal corporation this morning.  He said people were looking for end to end solutions to  transport problems, like a person may take  a Metro train and then take an auto to another destination.  The point  is  only the BEST  bus service can provide this  point to point service because it is a hundred times more flexible than the metro. The government authorities will never admit this but this is  a fact the authorities  must understand.

   Metro can never, never, never provide such connectivity  because we know fully well now the locations of Metro stations and  we must realise   there are multiple points in this large metropolis which  cannot be approached with ease by Metro.

     With google  and other technologies available even a child will now understand that government’s claims  on most issues are  without any foundation.

Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist and author of a book on public transport