Mumbai: Your bus ride will cost more from today

From Monday, be ready to shell out more money if you commute by the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses. HT reports.

From Monday, be ready to shell out more money if you commute by the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) buses.

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The hike will hit those commuters who regularly travel by AC buses the most.

While for ordinary and limited buses, your fare hike is Re.1 for the minimum distance of 2km – you will have to pay Rs.6 instead of Rs.5 now – for air-conditioned buses, passengers will have to pay a minimum fare of Rs.20 instead of Rs.15.

The fare hike for ordinary and limited buses will be limited to the first two stages of travel, that is, for 2 km and 3 km, and the hike is not more than Re.1 at each stage.

However, for AC buses, the fare goes up at every stage, so the overall hike can be as steep as Rs.15.

The fares of express buses (both ordinary and AC), which run on selected corridors and have fewer stops, too will rise. The minimum fare in ordinary express buses will be Rs.7 and in AC express buses it will be Rs.20.

Around 40 lakh commuters travel by BEST’s 4,300 buses daily, including 260 AC buses.

The BEST administration had proposed the fare hike a few months ago, which was approved by the BEST committee, the general body of the civic body and finally by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Transport Authority on March 16.

The previous hike was a year ago, in April 2012, when the BEST hiked fares by 33% to 35%.