BEST plans austerity measures to come out of red

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST), the transport and electricity wing of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), today presented its budgetary plan for the fiscal year 2018-19.
The plan stresses on cutting down its annual losses by adopting cost-cutting measures.
"General Manager of the BEST undertaking presented a proposal before the chairman of the BEST committee in which administration has suggested several measures to cut down the annual losses that the undertaking is facing every year," said a senior official of the BEST.
He said, "We are in loss of Rs 880 crore for the current fiscal year and the undertaking aims to cut this losses down to Rs 220 crore.

"To achieve this target, several proposals have been put forward such as increasing the bus and pass fare, freezing the allowances, curtailment in the numbers of the employees and so on."
The official added, "These are the simple proposals which will be discussed by the members of the BEST committee in coming weeks jointly with BEST officials.

"After that it will be sent to the standing committee of the BMC to approve it."
According to Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, the civic bodies have to present the budget of the next fiscal year by October 10 every year.
The BMC, however, has not granted its approval to the budget proposal passed by the BEST committee for the fiscal year 2017-18.