No takers for BEST GM post
Mumbai's Mahayuti government struggles to find an IAS officer for BEST after Anil Diggikar's transfer post-accident; losses near ₹9,000 crore.
Mumbai: The Mahayuti government has failed to find an IAS officer to head the loss-making Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking after Anil Diggikar was transferred as general manager in the wake of an accident involving a BEST bus in Kurla on December 9 that left nine dead. The post has been lying vacant for over three weeks.
On December 24, the government appointed Harshdeep Kamble, then principal secretary in the industries department, as general manager of BEST, but the officer requested chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to cancel the posting. On January 2, he was posted as principal secretary of the social justice department.
Sources in the state government said that they had asked at least seven to eight IAS officers including Pravin Darade, who is currently without any posting, to assume charge at BEST, but they all refused.
Diggikar was transferred as additional chief secretary of the persons with disabilities welfare department following the accident on December 9 as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis wanted to streamline the undertaking. Additional municipal commissioner Ashwini Joshi now holds additional charge as BEST GM.
On Tuesday, the government transferred eight IAS officers but no one was posted in BEST as bureaucrats feel that it is a sinking body, said sources.
Many luminaries have served as BEST GM in the past, including technocrats like P B Kerkar and G B Mitbander and IAS officers like Suresh Chandra and Rahul Asthana. Manmohan Singh, known to be pro-people IAS officer, turned the organisation around and pulled it out of losses in the 1990s.
In recent years, general managers have eyed BEST’s depots and properties and sold off some of them in the name of commercialisation and monetisation. The number of BEST buses have dwindled too – at present, the undertaking owns 985 buses while 1,900 buses have been taken on wet lease. Ex-BMC commissioner Praveen Pardeshi had slashed the minimum fare on BEST buses from ₹6 to ₹5 in a bid to popularise its services, but that did not help shore up revenues.
BEST currently has around 24,000 employees across its electric supply and transport divisions while its losses are close to ₹9,000 crore.

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