The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) committee members on Friday took up the issue of pending gratuity to be paid to retired staffers — whose amount has now shot up from Rs 405 crore to Rs 503 crore, sources said.
“The BEST panel had unanimously passed a resolution that the money should be funded by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and this was approved by the BMC House, but the files are stuck for clearance by the civic administration for 3 months,” said senior committee member Sunil Ganacharya at the panel meeting.
He said that four of these retired staffers passed away recently and their family members await the pending dues.
He further informed the panel that gratuity was not paid to staffers since 2018.
“A few of them have gone to court and won the case against BEST and we will have to pay them interest of around Rs 20 crore. It is high time we clear all dues and respect the staffers who have put in years of hard work for the undertaking,” Ganacharya added.
BEST general manager Lokesh Chandra told the panel he will discuss the issue with civic chief I S Chahal soon.
Meanwhile, the panel also cleared the payment of over Rs 2 crore to be made to Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation for the services rendered by its buses during Covid pandemic in Mumbai.
Surjitt Sahani
