When the bus stopped, Diggikar was deboarded
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is angry over inefficiencies in his administration and has launched into a revamping of his bureaucracy. The first reshuffle of government officials manning crucial state departments on his watch (also, his first call of attention immediately after the winter session of the state legislature, which concluded on 21 December 2024) was to transfer Anil Diggikar, general manager, BEST, Mumbai city’s undertaking for transport, from his post for literally missing the bus.
Diggikar was moved out not merely due to the spate of accidents that the limitedly available EV bus fleet was witnessing, but also for failing to administer and ensure delivery of 10,000 EV wet lease bus services for Mumbai city by 2024. BEST had floated tenders to ramp up its public transport system offering the cheapest and, yet, comfortable air-conditioned travel option for last denominator common citizens in 2021 under the erstwhile MVA government.
The intention was to achieve a target of 10,000 zero pollution emitting EV buses in Mumbai city, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sought to transform into the international fin-tech capital of the world. Modi had gone further and provided Rs450 crore to fund the changeover. The amount is still lying mostly unutilised in BEST’s bank account, under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), which could have been more productively utilised to improve the deteriorating air quality index (AQI) of Mumbai through more active programmes. The proposed zero pollution EV bus fleet still remains a pipe-dream, with BEST admitting to having only 3,100 EV buses servicing the city as of January 2025.
Mahendra Jain, general secretary, BJP’s Maharashtra Trade Cell and a resident of Mumbai, has submitted a written complaint to the PMO and Maharashtra CMO, citing the inadequacy of the existing bus fleet plied by BEST. “I personally visited the BEST headquarters in south Mumbai to complain about the existing low frequency on mass-populated bus routes, but discovered that the fleet service of buses was low and that, on an average week, six or seven of the EV buses were lying idle at the Colaba workshop for want of spare parts. This has compounded the problem further,” Jain noted. “I also made a complaint to the BMC chief under whose jurisdiction BEST operates, but was informed that BEST enjoys autonomy of administrative service,” he added.
Failed vision plan
Global tenders had been called for in 2021 and Olectra group, a part of Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL) had quoted the lowest bid (L1 value) at RS49 per km to supply 2,100 EV buses by end of 2022. Ashok Leyland’s Switch Mobility too quoted the L1 value to similarly supply 200 double decker EV buses. True, after tenders were opened in 2021, litigation held up the process of Mumbai’s EV bus replenishments till November 2022, when it was finally cleared by the Bombay High Court, but what happened thereafter? Why has the vision plan for Mumbai city’s public transport failed?
Till January 2025, MEIL has provided wet lease services of only 275 single decker buses out of the 2,100 promised, while Swift Mobility has provided less than 60 out of the 200 double decker EVs. The original vision was to further ramp up through incremental annual additions to the wet lease bus services, through the two contracted EV service providers, to reach an effective 10,000 bus fleet wet lease service in Mumbai city by end of 2024. The reality exhibits a deficit of close to 7,000 wet lease buses currently being plied on Mumbai roads.
“Actually, two different tenders were awarded initially to Swift Mobility (for 200 buses) and to Olectra Megha (for 2,000 12-metre-long, single-decker EV buses),” says a senior secretariat official. Over two years have passed since the litigation ended in 2022 and production started, but BEST has only been incrementally provided less than 60 (of the promised 200) double-decker buses and 275 (of the promised 2,100) single-decker buses so far.
While Swift Mobility was initially challenged due to some 2019 notification and delayed due to the requirement of the installation of some specific components prescribed in the said government resolution, explained Diggikar, when contacted in December 2024. Also, “we had a meeting with Olectra and it promised to fulfil its obligation to provide the full 2,000 wet lease bus service component by 2025 June. Our options were also limited as other bidders had quoted higher at R79 per km tariff, which we did not pursue,” Diggikar explained.
However, “The tender conditions were specific and afforded a maximum one-year-to-18-months for fulfilment of the contracts on delivery, failing which encashment of stiff bank guarantees was prescribed as one of the tender conditions, the secretariat official notes. The agreement was strictly to be enforced and Diggikar’s predecessor and then GM Lokesh Chandra invoked bank guarantees during his tenure after a mere 30 of the promised double-decker EVs were received until June 2023, as against the 200 that were due.”
In June 2023, Chandra was transferred from BEST and the new incumbent Diggikar was unable to enforce the contract stipulations ever since. Diggikar had also promised to revert with full details on the issue to the list of queries submitted to him but failed to deliver on that count as well, before he was transferred.
Thereafter, deliveries were expected to commence, ensuring that 2,100 single-decker EVs and 200 double-decker EVs were received by June 2023, to further ramp up the wet lease bus services incrementally to the ambitiously planned 10,000 buses, but both service providers failed to deliver the goods. Repeated attempts to reach out to spokespersons for both the private service providers have failed to elicit a response.