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Journalism of Courage
The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) Tuesday took a decision to pay Rs 5,000 as Diwali bonus or ex gratia payment to its employees during its committee meeting even as some members demanded that the BEST employees be paid at par with Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) employees, who will get Rs 13,600 as bonus.
The bonus is going to add extra burden on the cash-strapped transport undertaking. BEST decided to pay this amount after pressure from unions, which had threatened to go on strike.
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BEST is going to pay the bonus by deferring payment of its loan installment to BMC by one month. “We had taken a loan of Rs 1,600 crore from BMC to pay Tata Power dues. We pay them Rs 40 crore every month, we have deferred payment this month and will be using Rs 30 crore to make the ex-gratia payment,” said BEST general manager Jagdish Patil.
He admitted it would add to the burden.
“What is given to BMC employees should be given to BEST employees also. Since BEST is part of BMC, they should be supportive and employees of both the organisations should be paid Rs 13,600 as bonus,” said Ravi Raja from Congress. Kedar Hombalkar from MNS raised objections to the fact that many committee members had learnt about this decision to disburse Rs 5,000 to employees after a meeting at Matoshree – Thackeray residence – alleging Shiv Sena was trying to take credit for the decision.
BEST’s general manager emphasised that the decision to pay Rs 5,000 had been taken in accordance with the financial position of the organisation and taking into consideration future generation of revenue. Some members said an amount of Rs 5,000 had been paid as bonus as long back as 1992-93 and the transport undertaking should be paying much more now.
mumbai.newsline@expressindia.com
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