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By:

Minal Sancheti

2 May 2026 at 12:26:53 pm

BEST strike paralyses Mumbai

Mumbai: For Sai More, an LIC agent, the Friday commute from his home in Century Bazar, Worli to work place in Churchgate, proved as an expensive affair. On a normal day, he spends Rs 12 on a BEST bus fare till Dadar station and then takes the local train to Churchgate. However, he had to shell out more money than his usual spending on the travel. Thanks to the strike by BEST Samyukt Kamgar Kruti Samiti, a joint action committee comprising 12 unions, pressing for its demands of better wages...

BEST strike paralyses Mumbai

Mumbai: For Sai More, an LIC agent, the Friday commute from his home in Century Bazar, Worli to work place in Churchgate, proved as an expensive affair. On a normal day, he spends Rs 12 on a BEST bus fare till Dadar station and then takes the local train to Churchgate. However, he had to shell out more money than his usual spending on the travel. Thanks to the strike by BEST Samyukt Kamgar Kruti Samiti, a joint action committee comprising 12 unions, pressing for its demands of better wages and working conditions. The strike paralysed the city’s second life line – the BEST bus. Only 32 of 2,766 buses were operated in the city in a rare collapse of the transport system. The strike forced the government to hold a meeting with the officials and workers later in the day to discuss their demands. More, the sole bread winner in this family, earns Rs 25,000 a month. When he learned about the BEST strike the first went to Aqua Line metro. He boarded the crowded metro from Worli and got down at Dadar. Then he took a local train to Churchgate and hired a share taxi to his office at Nariman Point. “I travel from Dadar to Nariman Point every day using bus and train. But today we faced difficulty because there were no buses. My colleagues and I went together to our office by cab.” The Samiti has been pressing for three demands. Rangnath Satavase, a representative of the Samiti, said, “We don’t want an independent budget for the BEST. You should include it with the BMC’s budget. The employees are facing issues due to salary arrears since 2016. We demand proper wages from 2016 to 2026 and apply seventh Pay Commission recommendations to the BEST workers. The wet lease workers should be included in the BEST as its workers and they should get minimum wages.” The BEST bus operators face many issues because there are fewer BEST buses that are working every day. This makes their work difficult. They complain that their salary has not increased since a long time. Vaishali Chavan, a bus conductor, said, “My salary is Rs 18,000 and I don’t get holidays. Now since they have reduced the number of buses, it is difficult to manage the huge number of passenger crowds. This makes our job tough. So, we demand higher wages and better work conditions.” The operators also claim that they don’t get any holidays except one weekly off. They have to work even during festivals, and if they don’t, their salary gets deducted. Imran Sheikh, a bus driver, said, “We don’t get equal wages. The salary ranges from Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 per month without any holidays. We just get one weekly holiday, but other than that we have to work even on the Labourer’s Day, Gandhi Jayanti, Diwali and Ramzan. If we take leave because of some emergency work, they cut our salaries.” He has been working for two years. “Some of my colleagues have been working for more than five years. Even their salaries have been the same. They promise they will increase, but they never do, and there is no bonus given.” Trushna Vishwasrao, chairperson of the BEST Committee, criticised the workers and said they should not have gone on strike when the BEST is already going through a loss. She said, “We agree with their demands, and we will fulfill it, so there is no need for a strike. It takes time to implement all the demands. We have got a gratuity of Rs five crores that we will be using to compensate the salary, and more funds will be coming, which we will use to fulfill their demands.” She said BEST is running at a deficit in any way. Their strike has also troubled the common public who depend on the BEST buses to travel. Commuters Stranded The strike left commuters stranded during the morning rush hour, with long queues seen at bus stops across the city. They later scrambled for already packed local trains, Metro services, autos, and cabs to reach their workplace. A spokesperson of the civic undertaking said only 48 buses were on Mumbai's roads during the day while some others were forced to return to depots after incidents of stone-pelting and obstruction by striking employees. BEST is Mumbai's second-largest public transport provider after the suburban railway network and carries around 25 lakh passengers daily through its bus services. It also supplies electricity to more than 10 lakh consumers in south and central Mumbai. However, union leaders claimed the strike was 100 per cent successful on the first day. Both transport and power divisions of the BEST took part in the strike. However, power supply to BEST customers in the island city remained unaffected by the agitation. Many passengers were forced to rely on alternative modes of transport, such as suburban trains, Metro services, autorickshaws, taxis, and app-based cabs, while others reported delays in reaching their workplaces and educational institutions. "During weekdays, I travel to work by public transport, but today I took my bike out as there were no buses on the roads," said Sachin Nalawade, who works as a consultant. The strike commenced despite an ad-interim order passed by an industrial court restraining employees from resorting to a strike and the Maharashtra government's invocation of the Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act (MESMA), which prohibits the disruption of essential services. “Shared autorickshaws usually charge Rs 30 from Bharat Nagar to Bandra or Kurla, but today drivers were charging as they pleased. Some were demanding Rs 40 to Rs 50,” an employee of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said. "The issue is not merely that of workers. It is the outcome of the BJP-led Mahayuti government's negligence and wrong policies. It was known to the administration that employees were planning to go on strike. Was the government asleep until lakhs of Mumbaikars were held to ransom? Who will take responsibility for allowing the situation to deteriorate to the point where BEST services came to a halt?" Varsha Gaikwad, President, Mumbai Congress

AI Vulnerabilities and Digital Payment

India’s rapid shift toward a digitally mediated financial system has delivered gains in efficiency, inclusion, and transaction speed. At the centre of this transformation is the Unified Payments Interface, now processing billions of transactions each month and functioning as the backbone of retail payments. This architecture improves access and reduces friction, but it also concentrates operational dependence within a tightly connected system where vulnerabilities can scale quickly.


Recent advances in AI-based code analysis systems, including autonomous vulnerability detection tools under development in frontier AI firms such as Anthropic, have expanded concerns about cybersecurity exposure in critical infrastructure. These systems are framed as defensive tools for identifying software weaknesses, but their capability profile raises dual-use concerns. The ability to map vulnerabilities across large codebases at scale shifts cyber risk from isolated breaches toward systemic exposure across interconnected financial networks.


India’s payment infrastructure depends on layered integration between banks, payment providers, and the central switching system operated by the National Payments Corporation of India. This structure enables scale and near real-time settlement across financial actors. Its efficiency is linked to interdependence, where disruption in one layer can propagate quickly across others, especially when legacy systems are not uniformly hardened.


Unknown Vulnerabilities

The concern is not only system outages but also the possibility of AI systems identifying previously unknown vulnerabilities across banking software and API layers. In such cases, the challenge moves from detection to containment of adaptive exploit patterns that evolve faster than conventional response systems. Recovery timelines may extend if attacks target logic-level weaknesses rather than surface infrastructure.


From a macroeconomic perspective, the Reserve Bank of India focuses on inflation control, liquidity management, and financial stability. Digital payment systems influence transaction velocity and play an indirect role in monetary transmission. While a major disruption would not lead to immediate monetary failure, it could introduce short-term frictions in liquidity flows.


In a stress scenario, economic agents may temporarily shift toward cash holdings, altering currency circulation patterns. Such behavioural adjustments complicate liquidity forecasting and short-term policy calibration. They may also distort high-frequency economic indicators that central banks rely on for real-time assessment.


India’s banking system exhibits uneven cybersecurity capacity across institutions. Large private banks and globally integrated financial institutions invest significantly in threat intelligence, continuous testing, and cyber defence systems. In contrast, several public sector and smaller banks operate with legacy systems and constrained cybersecurity budgets. This creates asymmetric exposure to cyber risk. If advanced AI-based vulnerability tools become unevenly accessible, the gap in defensive capacity may widen. Cybersecurity risk then becomes linked not only to system design but also to institutional capability. From a systemic standpoint, financial stability depends on the resilience of weaker institutions as much as on stronger ones. This raises a policy question about whether cybersecurity should remain market-driven or be treated partly as shared infrastructure.


India’s approach to AI governance is evolving through initiatives such as the India AI Impact Summit and related policy frameworks. These efforts recognise AI as a strategic domain intersecting with economic policy, innovation, and security considerations. However, current regulation remains focused on data protection, algorithmic transparency, and consumer-facing applications.


The emergence of autonomous systems capable of interacting with software infrastructure suggests a need for expanded regulatory scope. One policy direction under consideration globally is structured auditing of high-capability AI systems. This involves evaluating whether such systems can be misused to identify or exploit vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, including financial networks. The objective is to establish baseline safety standards for systems with systemic risk potential. Such frameworks would require coordination between financial regulators, cybersecurity agencies, and technical oversight bodies. They would also need to remain adaptive as AI capabilities evolve.


From a development economics perspective, financial systems shape individual capability. The framework associated with Amartya Sen highlights that economic security depends on reliable access to systems that enable participation in economic life. In a digital financial environment, cybersecurity becomes a condition for maintaining that access.


If individuals are unable to use payment systems, access savings, or rely on digital transactions due to disruptions, their economic functioning is constrained. Cybersecurity therefore becomes a welfare concern, not just a technical issue.


Policy Challenge

The policy challenge is to align the growth of AI capability with proportional safeguards in financial infrastructure. This requires strengthening institutional resilience through continuous stress testing, including scenarios that account for AI-driven threats. It also requires reducing asymmetry in cybersecurity capacity by improving access to defensive tools across institutions.


Governance frameworks must incorporate security auditing as a standard requirement for advanced AI systems, particularly those with code-level or autonomous capabilities. This ensures that technological progress is accompanied by appropriate safeguards.


India’s digital public infrastructure remains among the most advanced large-scale payment systems globally. Preserving its stability requires anticipating both conventional cyber threats and emerging risks associated with increasingly autonomous software systems. The objective is not to slow digital transformation, but to ensure that its foundations remain secure under evolving technological conditions.


International coordination is also relevant as financial systems become interconnected across jurisdictions. Cyber incidents in one system can transmit through correspondent banking relationships and shared infrastructure providers. Harmonised cybersecurity standards for systemically important institutions can improve resilience.


Domestic policy can further strengthen stability through redundancy in payment routing, improved system segmentation, and stronger incident response protocols. Clear communication during disruptions is equally important to maintain public trust and prevent behavioural shocks that amplify technical failures. Over time, resilience in digital finance will depend on combining technical safeguards with institutional coordination and regulatory clarity. This will allow continued innovation in financial technology while maintaining stability in core economic functions.


India’s experience shows that digital finance can scale rapidly when supported by strong infrastructure and governance. The next phase requires integrating cybersecurity into the core design of financial systems rather than treating it as an external layer. This shift is essential to ensure that technological progress strengthens the foundations of economic security.


(The author is an independent public policy researcher. Views personal.)

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