Air India renewal mission

Mumbai’s public transport service BEST, as many others in different states, got money from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to buy new low-floor buses. What came as a bit of a surprise, however, for passengers who were travelling Air India was to find the brand-new buses being used to ferry them to and from the planes. There wasn’t anything clandestine about the operation since the buses, painted in the BEST colours, had Air India stickers on the glass and even said they’d been bought using JNNURM funds. Clearly, those in charge of the JNNURM didn’t envisage such an outsourcing by the beneficiaries of the scheme.