156 old BEST buses in Mumbai to be scrapped by January 31

The proposal of scrapping old buses was accepted by the BEST committee on Tuesday.

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) management has decided to scrap 156 old buses by January 31 and reduce the number of its fleet size from nearly 3500 to 3337. It will also include 25 hybrid buses.

The management has stated that the buses were being scrapped in order to deal with losses (HT File)

The proposal of scrapping old buses was accepted by the BEST committee on Tuesday. The management has stated that this is being done in order to deal with losses. It also said that after scrapping old buses, they will be able to provide proper maintenance to other buses.

“The 156 buses are a liability for the organisation. We will be scrapping out the buses by January 31,” said Surendra Kumar Bagde, general manager, BEST.

Meanwhile the BEST has proposed to hire 225 buses including 100 air-conditioned (AC) mini buses, for a period of seven years. According to BEST sources, they wanted to hire mini and midi buses since smaller buses can move at faster speed on narrow and congested city roads, as compared to regular ones.