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Lala lajpatrai college

of commerce and economics

Project on:  Industrial law

Topic: B.e.s.t buses and taxi’s

Submitted to:prof. parul mam

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INTRODUCTION – B.E.S.& .T BUSES

Mumbai saw its first bus run on 15th July, 1926.The people of Mumbai received the bus withenthusiasm, but it took quite sometime before thismeans of conveyance really established itself.  Forseveral years, it was looked upon as transport forthe upper middle classes.  Those were the dayswhen the tram was the poor man’s transport,

carried one all the way from Sassoon Dock toDadar for a mere anna and a half, that was ninepaise. The bus fare for the same journey was fourannas, that is 25 paise.

In response to the pleas made by the Government

and the Brihan Mumbai Mahanagarpalika, the

Company extended its services to the northern

part of the city in 1934.  Double deck buses were

introduced in 1937 in order to cope better with the

growing traffic.  The first Limited Bus service in

Mumbai, and probably the first in the country as

well, started running in 1940 between Colaba and

Mahim.

Thus, the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport

Company was municipalised and came to be

known as Bombay Electric Supply & Transport

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Undertaking .  The Undertaking has completed 50

years of its municipalisation on 7th August, 1997.

INTRODUCTION – TAXI’S

The Taxis arrived in 1911 to complement horsewagons. The black and yellow Fiat taxis in Mumbai,are integral part of the city's heritage and havebeen depicted in numerous Bollywood movies.

These metered taxis ply throughout Mumbai andhave monopoly from Bandra to Churchgate on theWestern line and Sion to Chatrapati ShivajiTerminus on the Central line. Beyond Sion andBandra auto rickshaws are not allowed and one hasto hire a taxi. However, between Sion to Thane andBandra to Bhayandar, Taxis and autorickshaws ply.A mechnical meter decides the fare and is

proportional to the distance traveled. Number of taxis (cabs): About 55,000-52,000.

Recently Radio cab services have been introducedby some private companies. These taxis are brandnew air-conditioned cars fitted with GPS andelectronic metres. Fare is same as that of Cool

Cabs. Presently operated by three companies:Meru (Green Silver), Gold cabs (Yellow Red) andMega cabs (Black). However these taxis need to bebooked in advance by calling their call centrenumber.

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Recently the police revealed that it is required bylaw that the driver of an unengaged taxi take youto where you want to go, distance and time

regardless. If the driver does not comply, onesimply needs to call the police (dial 100) andmention the taxi's license number and the driver'sname. The act of calling the police on your cellphone usually makes the driver comply with yourrequest to be taken to your destination.

Study on the issue of taxi drivers, taxi 

owners and cab unions in Mumbai.

1. Taxi-Drivers versus Taxi-Owners.Through   the   survey,   it   has   become   possdistinguish between taxi-drivers and taxi-owners.The ones with khaki uniforms are mostly taxidrivers i.e. working for those who own the taxis,whereas those who wear white are essentially taxiowners and they drive their own taxis or havemany taxis, drive just one and the other taxis aredriven by the employed drivers. There are manyoccasions when the taxi drivers feel that unionismdoes not really benefit them much as much itbenefits the taxi-owners since they are the ones

who really approach the unions for loans whilebuying a new taxi or bulk license renewal. In suchcases   the   taxi-drivers   feel   that   becoming member and the payment of membership is not

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worth it as they can do most of the jobs forthemselves. eg, license renewal.

2. Side tracking the main labour related issues.Some of the taxi drivers did not feel the need to bebelong a union as a union they felt was toopoliticized, the leader was an outsider, he was notaware of the real problems that were facing thetaxi drivers and hence did not really empathizewith them, in the process he ignored the realproblems the taxi-drivers were facing. There weresome   cabbies   who   felt   indifferent   about  politicization of unions. Politics they justified was apart of every activity in this country and hence insome way or the other politicization was bound tooccur. 3. The volte face tendency of unions.

Many times the unions lure the cabbies with falsehopes and promises. They tell them that if theybecome members then the union people would gettheir work  done or  provide them with certainfacilities and make sure a law isn’t passed. In manycases this is just a farce and in reality things don’thappen the way the cabbies want them to once

they have joined the union. For instance, this yearthe Shiv Sena union appealed to taxi drivers inMumbai to become members of their union and if they did then the Sena would make sure that CNGfor taxis would not become compulsory, with this

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promise in mind, many of them did join the Senaunion but later on CNG did become compulsoryand many of them felt cheated.

 4. Inter-union rivalryOften rival unions work against each other, therebyreducing the efficiency of the labour movement. Attimes the rivalry shows up in each union adoptingcontrary strategies and thereby the entire group of taxi-men loses out. At other times, the rivalry takesa violent turn, causing damage to life and property.In the Asian Age (30th December, 2002), it wasreported that two rival unions (the City-Taxi-men'sUnion and the Bharatiya Taxi Chalak Sangh) foughtover  which   would  ferry  passengers  from  domestic and international airports. The violencethat erupted caused at least ten taxi drivers to getphysically hurt.

 

THE UNION MEMBERSHIPOut of the 30 cabbies, 66.67 percent of thoseinterviewed   belonged   to   a   union.   While  remaining 33.33 percent were not union members.Those who did not belong to a union had strong

opinions as to why they did not belong to a union.The following are some the reasons why cabbieswould prefer not belonging to a union: 

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Unions they felt charged money for tasks whichcould be easily done individually, example licenserenewal.

 Union   membership   fees   sometimes   were   naffordable to the cabbies Most of them felt that the unions were benefitingmainly   taxi-owners   and   not   those   who   wworking for the owners i.e. the taxi-drivers in thereal sense. Inspite of this it appears that most cabbies inMumbai do belong to a union and that’s becauseunion membership makes a life little easier inserious legal matters in case of accidents andlicense renewal problems. Thus it is proved fromthe survey analysis that most of the cabbies belong

to a union as they were aware of the fact thatunionism is essential for them and that’s why theychoose to belong to a union.

Strike by best buses

The Bus service in Mumbai, or Brihanmumbai Electric

Supply and Transport undertaking (BEST), is on strike

again, causing chaos and a lot of inconvenience to the 30

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lakh bus commuters who use the service daily. This is not

something rare or unusual in Mumbai, its a familiar

activity where thousands of bus employees go on strike,

demanding a pay hike.

There are over 42,000 BEST employees and 3,500 BEST

buses. So they are one of the lifelines of the city and if 

they aren't working, typically means overcrowded trains,

congested roads, taxi drivers demanding more money

from the passenger even for short distances.

Its a nightmare for the working class people which is the

majority of Mumbai's population, migrants from around

the country come to Bombay to fulfill their materialistic

dreams and desires.

BEST union leaders said they were not responsible for the

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commuters' plight. "Commuters should ask the BEST

management about this. It is the BEST workers who come

forward and provide undisrupted service to people during

water logging, fire or riots. Our services to the peopleshould not be forgotten," the general secretary of the

employees union, told IANS.

Agreed, but its the Government who should take notice of 

their service and pay them well enough. If you take a look

at the salary structure the bus conductors (the person

who accepts your money and provides you with a ticket)

and drivers get, its appalling. The data is as on March

2004, but not much has changed in the last 3 years, the

BEST site is not updated.

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A BEST conductor can get a maximum of Rs 10,737 and a

bus driver Rs 10,909. They work hard too, spend long

hours in crowded buses, they deserve to be paid more. If 

that was the case, then there would have been no strike,no disruption.

Salary Source

Another perspective to the issue, it seems the current

salaries have gone up to Rs 15,000 in 2007, and the BEST

is not really making a profit, according to the audited

financial balance sheet for 2005-06, BEST incurred a net

loss of Rs 178.95 crore.

In the graph below, the green indicates the loss, while the

blue the earnings and red the spendings.

Looks like the BEST needs someone like Lalu, who turnedthe loss making Indian Railways into a profitable

organization.

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The traffic policemen had a tough job due to the

additional amount of cars on the road due, to the strike.

The number of traffic police seemed to be more than

usual due to the chaos on the streets of Bombay.

 

Due to the increase in private vehicles, rickshaws and

taxis caused by the bus strike, a journey that usually

takes an hour by car, around 20 Km, took two and a half hours. The peak traffic usually ends at 9 PM was

prevalent even after 10.30 PM.

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These strikes will also have a drastic impact on theenvironment, with regards to air pollution and global

warming. It seems the strike will be on for atleast 72

hours.

Strike by taxisTaxis started going off the roads after the taxidrivers’ union announced a flash strike following anattack on their union's office in central Mumbai onThursday morning allegedly by Raj Thackeray'sMaharashtra Navnirman Sena activists.

"A group of around 20 to 25 activists stormed intothe office of the Bombay Taximen's Union in

central Mumbai and assaulted office members.They also damaged office furniture and otherequipment," said D A Salian, from the BombayTaximen's Union.

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The Union immediately called for a flash strike andsaid that all taxis would be pulled off roads, hesaid.

"The taxis will stay off the roads the whole day andwe will be meeting in the evening to decide futurecourse of action," he said.

Since Sunday, there were also sporadic instancesof attacks on taxi and auto rickshaws.

On Wednesday evening there were some attackson taxi drivers in the suburbs of Malad, Vakola andVile Parle, police officials said.

Members of the Union attributed the attack to theirchief A L Quadros' demand that MNS chief RajThackeray should be arrested for the recentviolence against taximen in the city since Sunday.

Quadros, who heads the over 55,000 strong union,had also demanded compensation for taxi driversaffected by the violence.

Members of the Union had met Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil on Wednesday in order to discussattacks on taxi drivers, Salian said.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) K LPrasad on Thursday went to meet Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil, who also holds the homeportfolio, to discuss the overall law and ordersituation in the city.

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Police has not yet confirmed who were behind theattack on the taxi drivers’ union office.

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Submitted by:

1. Vaibhav Khicha 891244

2. Kerul Shah 8912413. Priyank Shah 8912624. Nikit Sharma 8912425. Krisha patel 8912576. Nikita jain 891266