Malnutrition fund used to fix buses
Millions of rupees collected for welfare of malnourished children by the Brihanmumbai Electricity Suburban Transport (BEST) is being diverted to maintain its buses.
The money was collected as surcharge on every ticket sold to bus passengers.
According to a recent report by a news channel, the Child Nutrition Surcharge was set up 16 years ago to collect a small percentage of each bus ticket fare, to feed children suffering from malnutrition. However, it has been revealed that the funds are not being diverted for the said cause.
The report further revealed that Mumbai owed over $9 million to the state towards the fund. According to a BEST official, the transport body hasn’t been able to divert funds meant for malnourished children for the last two years, because of its poor financial condition.
“For the last 15 years, a surcharge of 5 paise per ticket was being collected from BEST bus passengers. We diligently sent this fund to the state government till 2010, but stopped diverting the money after that, to help tide over our own crisis,” said Ravi Raja, a member of BEST committee.
The public transport company in Pune has also failed to deposit the fund in the state’s coffers.
Pune has collected over $10 million from bus passengers, but handed over less than one million dollars to the
fund. “All the transport undertakings are suffering huge losses. Hence, we cannot give the government the nutrition taxes we collect,” said Ravindra Pardesi, a spokesman for the public transport company in Pune city.
“If we had deposited the money, the government would have given us a 2.5 per cent commission. However, the transport bodies are in no position to part with the funds,” he added.
When contacted, Varsha Gaikwad, the state’s minister for children and women’s development, said she was not aware of the existence of such a fund and would set up an inquiry into the matter very soon.
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