BEST doing better,but has just 10 profitable routes

“We have to operate on the principle that we are a social undertaking and not a profit-making agency,” Sunil Shinde,chairman of the BEST committee,said. “But,we have generally noticed that feeder services perform better than other routes.” The feeder services refer to routes that ferry passengers to and from railway stations.

Routes such as 138 (CST-Backbay depot),261 (Jogeshwari bus station-Goregaon bus station west),272 (Malad Station west-Marve),313 (Kurla station west-Santacruz station east) and 332 (Kurla station west-Majas depot) are some of the most profitable,Shinde said. The number of profit-making routes will increase once infrastructure projects such as the monorail and metrorail are completed,as these will give BEST scope to start more feeder services,he added.

The completion of various infrastructure projects like the Chembur-Wadala monorail and the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar metro corridor next year could also reduce the number of loss-making routes for the BEST. “Traffic and congestion due to construction work are major factors leading to losses,” he said.

The data from the municipal auditor divides bus routes into three categories. The first category includes the routes that cover fixed and variable costs. The second category includes routes that fully cover variable costs,but only partly cover fixed costs,while the third category is of routes that run in losses and don’t manage to cover even variable cost. The BEST has cut the number of routes in the third category to 238 in 2010-11 from 344 in 2009-10,while the total number of routes rose slightly to 499 from 441 during the same period.

The undertaking had proposed hiking bus fares by a rupee to contain losses,but most of the committee members are opposing the move,saying losses can be cut by curtailing administrative expenses,increasing revenue from other sources and getting government aid.