BEST poised to get BETTER ?

Context :

‘BEST fleet will rise to over 6,000 buses now’

Extract :

The fleet of BEST buses in the city will be nearly doubled  and will go up from 3,500 to over 6,000 in coming months, said general manager Surendrakumar Bagde [ gm@bestundertaking.com ]

Bagde said that all the additional buses in the fleet will be on wet lease and not a single bus will be purchased.

“The wet lease model took some years to be implemented in BEST, but we did it with the support of BMC.

It has been beneficial for speed of deployment, bringing in more efficiency and also cutting down costs,” he stated, adding that the city needs a bigger fleet.

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How will “ Wet Leasing “ ( inclusive of driver + maintenance ) help “ increase efficiency “ and “ reduce costs “ ?

My following earlier blogs / e-mails , explain “ how “ :

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Evidence  is  piling  up  ! ……………………………………………………………………………..[ 13 May 2018 ]

Extract :

Let us assume that these Electric Buses in Hyderabad, will run for 25 days per month

So , the cost ( hire-charge ) comes to Rs 860 per working day

Now , BEST buses in Mumbai average 189 km run per day ( against target of 200 Km )

If those 20 GHMC Electric buses also average the same mileage , its “ Cost per Km “ would come to Rs 4.5 per Km ! ( I presume , this is NOT a wet-lease and therefore does not include the cost of the driver )

Even if we add the driver’s salary ( Rs 20,000 pm for running 4725 km per month ), that would come to another Rs 4.2 per Km

So the total cost would come to Rs 4.5 + Rs 4.2 = Rs 8.7 per km !

Compare this with BEST’s running cost of Rs 107 per Km !

Chinese city of Shenzhen added some 16,359 Electric buses in last 8 years ( 2,000 per

  year ! ) . At this rate , Mumbai could replace its 3711 diesel buses in less than 2 years !

 China adds about 9,500 EV buses every five weeks

*  To further reduce upfront costs, some operators in Shenzhen also choose to lease

    buses from the manufacturers

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Buy or Lease ?   …………………………………………………………………………………………… [ 03 Apr 2018 ]

 

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Logical to Lease    ………………………………………………………………………………………….[ 06 Mar 2018 ]

Extract :

Ø  A report in Hindustan Times ( 04 March ) reads :

Ø  The BEST had proposed wet leasing of buses in which the contractor will take care of driver, fuel and maintenance of buses

Ø  It was expected to bring savings of Rs 700 – 800 crore, but BEST panel had rejected the proposal earlier

Ø  It later on sanctioned most of the reform proposals including wet leasing of more than 450 buses

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EESL : Lease cars , do not Buy ! ………………………………………………………………………[ 16 Aug 2017 ]

 

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To Buy or not to Buy ?   ……………………………………………………………………………………[ 11 Oct 2017 ]

 

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Waiting to be proved wrong ! …………………………………………………………………………[ 30 Sept 2017 ]

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Thank You , Shri Bagde  …………………………………………………………………………………..[ 27 Feb 2019 ]

 

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For over 2 years, that ( now cancelled ) order for OUTRIGHT PURCHASE 10,000 electric cars , by EESL ( on M&M / TATA Motors ), is hanging fire

6 month old “  experiment “ of OUTRIGHT PURCHASE of a few “electric “LUXURY sedan ( @ Rs 20 lakh each ) from a Chinese Company, ( again by EESL ), is in limbo !

I once again urge Shri Saurabh Kumarji [ MD – EESL ], to forget about OUTRIGHT PURCHASES and switch-over to “ Wet Leasing “ of electric cars from local manufacturers ( with at least 50 % local value addition )

EESL has a target to replace the existing fleet of Petrol / Diesel cars of Central + State Governments ( approx. 500,000 cars ), with Electric Cars

Even at the rate of 50,000 EV per year, this replacement will take 10 years !

But doing so has following distinct advantages :

 

Ø  A big boost to Car Industry ( - and Li-Ion Battery manufacturing in India )

Ø  A huge improvement in Air Pollution – and related 12 lakh deaths / year

Ø  A saving ( both initial Fixed Cost + recurring Running cost ) of lakhs of crore 

  

With regards,

Hemen Parekh  /  hcp@RecruitGuru.com  /  25  Aug  2020