Congress, BJP, NCP boycott BEST committee meet

Mumbai; The Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members of the BEST committee boycotted the BEST committee meeting on Wednesday over the ex-gratia payment to 38,489 employees. The members had asked the BEST administration when it would make the ex-gratia payment to its employees but the administration was unable to give an exact date. However, BEST general manager Surendra Bagde said that he would come up with a plan within the next eight to ten days.

On November 2, the BEST administration had declared Rs 5,500 as ex-gratia payment to each of its employees during the BEST committee meeting. The BEST, which is already facing a financial crunch, will have to bear an additional burden of  Rs 22 crore to make this payment.

As soon as the BEST committee meeting began, Congress corporator and leader of the opposition in the BMC Ravi Raja raised the issue of the ex-gratia payment which was to have been paid to the employees before Diwali but had still not been credited to them even five days after the festival. “The BEST employees are working day in and day out for the administration. They expect their rightful bonus before Diwali,” he said, pointing out that this had never happened before in the history of the BEST.

Mr Raja asked the administration to specify a date on which the payment would be credited to employees’ account. But the BEST administration expressed its inability to give an exact date.  This forced the Congress, the NCP and BJP members to walk out of the meeting.

The BEST committee chairman Ashish Chemburkar said that the BMC should provide financial aid to the BEST for the ex-gratia payment to its employees.