BEST Bus Strike: Contract Workers Announce Flash Strike at Wadala Depot, Impacting Services

The BEST Bus drivers and conductors of the Mateshwari Company, a private contractor company in the BEST initiative, have gone on a strike at the Wadala Depot, on February 25.

An official from the BEST said that the bus drivers and conductors of the Mateshwari Company have gone on strike and are protesting to get their demands fulfilled. The wet-lease company’s bus drivers and conductors have damaged some buses that were coming out of the Wadala depot, reported Mid-Day.

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Private operators handle bus maintenance and driver compensation under the wet leasing model.

The BEST bus services were partially disrupted in January when the contractual staff of a commercial operator that was employed by the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport undertaking went on a flash strike at one of the depots in Mumbai.

Due to a shortage of buses, the failing Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) project has been experiencing a serious crisis and is gradually closing its most crucial bus routes. In 2021, the number of bus routes began to decrease.

This strike highlights that the BEST is going through a lot of struggle and is in great crisis. It is also reducing its key bus routes as the fleet is shrinking. There was a time when the transport service had 3,600 self-owned buses operating around 500 routes. Now it manages 2,911 buses, of which just 1,000 are self-owned. The number of routes has also reduced to over 300.

When a wet lease supplier pulled 280 buses from service in October, operations were even more strained. Concerns over the stability and dependability of Mumbai's public transport system are growing as a result of disruptions like strikes and supply problems occurring more frequently as BEST depends more and more on the wet lease model.