BEST now charges Mumbaikars for Reliability!

The biggest plus of living in South Mumbai is amost 24 hrs running water(not for new bldg and skyscrapers), Good clean mostly uninterrupted power supplied by Tata and distributed by BEST, No Blue line buses and a free body massage through the Suburban Western and Central rail(carrys 3 times capacity in rush hr and 2 times at any given time).

Most people might know the BEST undertaking from the infamous Sharad Rao’s BEST bus strike (the Union leader/ Goon) (the man who paralyzes the bus, cleaning and other essential services now and then) that runs the bus service in Mumbai. Now the Best staff are among the highest paid in India. No wonder they run it at a huge loss and that was till late being subsidised by their Electricity unit that supply’s south Mumbai upto dadar (approx). They have supposedly stopped it after the orders from E/c regulator MERC.

We Mumbaikars finally pay more duty tax etc than the original electricity consumption charges thanks to a strange charge namely Reliability charge that is no less than Rs 55 on my bill of value Rs 261 and a consumption of 129 . Thats not all — As the bill/consumption goes up the duties and charges go up on a disproportionate basis. Sadly the BEST does not even explain why the said charge has been levied on us and whether it is even ethical to levy it.