Day 1: Public transport arms thrown off gear, mixed response from bus commuters in Mumbai

A crowded bus stop at Malvani

Day 1 of Break the Chain saw a mixed response from bus commuters on Monday. With people not allowed to board BEST buses beyond the limit, there were longer queues at bus stops. However, it was seen that rules were followed at the first few bus stops, but eventually on longer routes, many buses got crowded and it was back to square one. Angry commuters complained that many buses skipped stops to avoid crowds.

Since the BEST Undertaking has replaced most of the big single and double deck buses with smaller 20-seater buses, the crowds swelled. "There has been a crowd at the bus stop since morning as the BEST staff did not allow us to get in, after all seats were full. I took an auto then," said Ramakant Gholap from Bandra east, who was going to Kurla west.

Crowds were aggressive

"There were serpentine queues at many bus stops since morning and the crowds will lead to COVID-19 infections there if not inside the bus," Siddiqui Mohammed Sajid, another commuter at Andheri said. At many places where crowds became aggressive as they were not allowed to get into buses, the BEST staff gave in to avoid a law-and-order situation.

"Even the state transport buses on duty of BEST did not follow the restrictions at many places as it was not at all practical, since the frequency of buses remained the same. If the government wants to do implement such restrictions, they should go back to planning and redesign the timetable to have more and more buses per route," Ghanashyam Tomar, a regular commuter said.

Commuter Aavesh Mukadam took pictures with timestamps and posted on the BEST's social media account stating that commuters were hanging outside from BEST and MSRTC buses like any other day, and questioned where the new rule of only seating passengers was.

‘Some buses empty'

But Deepak Yadav found some buses to be empty. "I observed that BEST buses are not allowing passengers over seat capacity. It's a good move to tackle the pandemic and I support it. However, the government was supposed to increase number of buses before doing this. Please think about daily wage workers," he said.

BEST officials said it was just the first day of the new guidelines and it will take time for things to settle down. Interestingly, the BEST PRO had something else to say. "The notifications will be implemented from 8 pm this evening," the BEST spokesperson said.

Eye on the BEST
Undertaking owns
1,623: single deckers
48: double deckers
466: Midi (normal)
25: Hybrid
In all 2,162 buses
Buses on lease
1,231: AC Midi/Mini
3,396: Mega total (both)