Mumbai’s transport network is a system run through Railways by the rail network and by the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses. For many years, the bus service has been suffering from financial constraints and recently, it nearly escaped being shut down. The debt-filled BEST was found out to have not paid the Nutritional cess charge to the Transport Department. Due to which, a transport officer had sealed three bank accounts of the transport wing.
While the transport officer was about to seal the head office of BEST, the officials of the bus company reached out to Transport Minister who used his special authority to stop the sealing. The interference of the Transport Minister saved the transport wing from getting shut down.
As per regulations, BEST is supposed to pay nutritional cess to the State Transport Department on the basis of ₹0.15 on the sale of one ticket. However, the in-debt BEST was unable to pay the cess since 2010 and had collected a cess of ₹500 crore. The company had approached BMC too for financial aid but received a refusal.
District Magistrate (DM) S.R. Jondhale told Mumbai Live that after such a big amount got accumulated, the Transport Department complained against BEST after which, three BEST bank accounts were sealed by the government.
Looking into this, the BEST officials immediately approached the Transport Minister and stayed the order to seal the accounts and head office. After which, BEST was provided with an extension to pay the due amount. However, BMC has withdrawn its intention to help. Therefore, a question of how the BEST officials will manage the issue remains persistent.
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