Mumbai: BEST workers union protest to highlight their demands

The protest took place on Wednesday

The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply And Transport (BEST) Workers Union on Tuesday staged a protest to highlight the various issues faced by the employees and the undertaking as a whole, stressing the need to maintain a minimum self-owned fleet of 3,337 buses as per an earlier legal agreement with the undertaking.

A large number of BEST workers were present at the meeting held at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai.

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"The workers have served Mumbaikars by working with self-respect. They have fought and won all their rights by overcoming the difficulties they faced from time to time. However, if BEST does not get self-owned buses, thousands of workers will become unemployed, and the public BEST transport service provided to Mumbaikars will be closed. Therefore, BEST must maintain its 3,337 self-owned buses," Shashank Sharad Rao of BEST Workers' Union said.

"The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) should immediately provide funds to BEST to purchase self-owned buses. BEST should permanently stop the practice of getting buses on wet lease through private contractors, and the buses required to provide public passenger transport services to Mumbaikars at low fares should be owned by BEST and operated by BEST," Rao, General Secretary of the union said while addressing the workers at Azad Maidan on Wednesday.

Rao also said that the BEST Workers Union will submit a memorandum to the state government regarding the above demands.