BEST wants Mum marathon to make up for its losses

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) panel members have asked their management to demand for compensation from the organisers of Sunday’s Mumbai Marathon for the loss the undertaking will incur due to the suspension of its services on routes which are part of the event. The members said that after the BEST had suffered the losses of Rs 2 crore due to Maharashtra Band on January 2 and 3 they cannot suspend services, as it will result in loss in revenue estimated to come at Rs. 25 lakh.

The Mumbai Marathon will leave the BEST with no services on 11 of their routes. A full marathon (42.195km) will start from Azad Maidan at CSMT while runners in the half marathon (21.097km) will run between Worli Dairy to CSMT.

The event will take place on January 21 (Sunday). This means that services in these areas will be shut until 1.00 pm.

Panel member Sunil Ghanacharya said, “We feel that the BEST should demand some kind of compensation from the Marathon organisers as it is not possible to shut down that section of Mumbai and incur more losses just after the losses we incurred from the damages due to the stone pelting during the Maharashtra Bandh divas.” He further added, “We cannot afford these luxuries anymore and we cannot shut our services.”

The BEST has also formed a sub-committee to consider what action will be taken against Trimax- the company that defaulted on its contract in providing hand held ticket machines to conductors. Members of the committee have claimed that almost 70 per cent of the machines are not functioning, thereby forcing the BEST to go back to the old system of paper tickets that are punched by the conductor. In fact, there was a huge hue and cry when the management proposed spending `13 lakh to bring back the old machines.