Mumbai: The strike by Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) employees continued for the second day on Saturday despite appeals by the Maharashtra Transport Minister and the invocation of the Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act (MESMA), severely disrupting bus services across the city.
The strike has affected the daily commute of lakhs of people in Mumbai, with office-goers, students, senior citizens and patients facing difficulties in reaching their destinations due to the near-total suspension of bus services. Passengers were forced to rely on overcrowded local trains and Metro services, taxis, autorickshaws and app-based cabs to travel across the metropolis.
BEST is Mumbai's second-largest public transport provider after the suburban railway network and carries around 25 lakh passengers daily through its fleet of 2,766 buses, most of them hired on a wet-lease basis from private operators. It also supplies electricity to more than 10 lakh consumers in the island city.
"In the absence of any concrete decision, we have decided to continue our agitation," Uday Ambonkar, convenor of the BEST Sanyukt Kamgar Kruti Samiti (joint action committee of unions), told PTI late on Friday night.
The BEST Sanyukt Kamgar Kruti Samiti, a joint action committee representing some employee unions, has called the strike to press for its long-pending demands.
The unions are demanding the merger of BEST's budget with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations for the 2016-2026 period, settlement of legal dues of retired employees, abolition of contractual arrangements in the transport and electricity departments, and absorption of wet-lease bus workers into BEST.
Maharashtra Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik on Friday held a joint meeting with leaders of the action committee, officials of the Urban Development Department and the BEST administration on the directions of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, but the discussions remained inconclusive.
The strike began on Friday despite an ad-interim order of an industrial court restraining employees from resorting to a strike and the invocation of MESMA, which prohibits the disruption of essential services.
The Shramik Utkarsh Sabha and the BEST Kamgar Union, which represent a section of employees, have distanced themselves from the agitation.
Despite efforts by the administration, only 48 of BEST's 2,766 buses operated on Friday. Some buses were also forced to return to depots following incidents of stone-pelting and obstruction by striking workers.
According to BEST officials, 26 incidents of stone-pelting, threats, tyre flattening and damage to bus mirrors were reported on the first day of the strike.