MUMBAI, June 13 -- In a little over a month after it hiked bus fares by 100 percent, the BEST Undertaking is set to bring them down. The authorities are working on reducing the fares by Rs.2-3 as well as rationalising the route kilometres. The step has been taken after the daily passenger count dropped by around 450,000 subsequent to the fare hike. Moreover the BEST's owned fleet, for the first time, has dropped below 500 buses. On June 11, the BEST authorities held a high-level meeting where they discussed the possible solutions to improve the situation, rationalise fares and introduce a new fare slab. Passengers have migrated to shared autorickshaws, senior officials said. Confirming this, BEST general manager SVR Srinivas said that he had directed his officials to bring down fares that would benefit passengers commuting on short-distance routes. "We are working on rationalising fares to bring them down to Rs.7-8 for 1 to 3 kilometres for non-AC buses," he said. "This pattern will be followed for the AC buses as well. The rationale is that why should a commuter travelling for 1-2 km pay the same fare as a passenger who travels for 5 km? Also, I compared the existing BEST fares with the shared autorickshaw fare and found that they need to be made competitive. We want to ensure that the passengers using our buses will pay less than the passengers sharing an autorickshaw and so we are adopting this formula of reducing fares. The new structure is being worked out and will be implemented after the necessary clearances." The BEST bus fares had not been hiked for over six years and were, in fact, reduced in 2019. The recent hike was expected to generate Rs.590 crore annually. At present, fares are Rs.10 for non-AC and Rs.12 for AC buses plying the first 5 km. There is an increase of Rs.5 for every 5 km after a journey of 20 km, and an additional Rs.2 has been levied as local tax if buses cross Mumbai district. Srinivas added that BEST services needed to improve and were at the crossroads, for which bus routes need to be reworked as per the upcoming metro rail corridors. "Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has asked the BMC commissioner to treat BEST as the BMC's 'brother' and directed him to give a 'turn-around package' to BEST by allotting 3% of the BMC budget for the Undertaking," he said. The financially beleaguered BEST was allocated a mere Rs.1,000 crore by the BMC in its 2025-26 budget out of the total outlay of Rs.74,427.41 crore. The BEST general manager said he had placed an order for 100 new buses on June 10, which would join the fleet in a month's time. At present, there are 2,591 buses in the fleet, of which 434 buses are owned by BEST. Their long bus routes are 25% to 30% of the total 428 bus routes which currently ferry 2.6 million daily passengers. The upgradation of the fleet is being done as CM Fadnavis is serious about the turnaround of BEST which is essential for an international city like Mumbai. BEST is working towards a fleet of 3,500 buses by March 2026 and 6,000 buses by 2029. This will help in lifting the current statistic of 20 buses for 100,000 passengers to the global norm of 60 buses per 100,000....