BEST mulls reducing bus fares and route rationalisation in Mumbai

In a little over a month after it hiked bus fares by 100 percent, the BEST Undertaking is set to bring them down.

- Draupadi Rohera

MUMBAI: The authorities are working on reducing the fares by 2-3 as well as rationalising the route kilometres. The step has been taken after the daily passenger count dropped by around 450,000 subsequent to the fare hike. Moreover, the BEST's owned fleet, for the first time, has dropped below 500 buses.

On June 11, the BEST authorities held a high-level meeting where they discussed the possible solutions to improve the situation, rationalise fares and introduce a new fare slab. Passengers have migrated to shared autorickshaws, senior officials said.

Confirming this, BEST general manager SVR Srinivas said that he had directed his officials to bring down fares that would benefit passengers commuting on short-distance routes.

"We are working on rationalising fares to bring them down to 7-8 for 1 to 3 kilometres for non-AC buses," he said.