``We have decided to operate the buses on an experimental basis for the next 15 days,'' said S P S Yadav, Additional Commissioner (Traffic), hoping that the move will help the buses gain an average speed of nearly 45 kilometres per hour. At present most BEST buses clock a measly 13 km/hour on Mumbai roads. Confirming this, Vinay Mohanlal, the General Manager of the undertaking said that though the buses will move faster, it will stop at all the scheduled stops en route. He hoped that this would encourage the public to use public transport frequently.

As part of theproject, parking of private vehicles and taxicabs will be stopped on the route. ``We plan to move the taxi-stands to the bylanes and have issued instructions to residents to park their vehicles outside the lane,'' said Yadav.

BEST had been propagating the idea of creating a separate lane for smooth movement of buses for the last two years. A series of meetings with the traffic police and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had not yielded results because of a unique problem - none of the three agencies wanted to spend money on painting the lane yellow for proper demarcation.``Neither BEST nor the traffic police are responsible for work done on the road, and the BMC did not want to spend money on the paint,'' said a senior traffic police official. The yellow paint issue kept the issue on the backburner till recently.

Then, just as BEST decided to bear the burden, the traffic police put a spoke in the wheel by stating that the implementation of the scheme was not possible because the stategovernment had decided to complete the construction of 52 flyovers in the city as soon as possible.

``The constructions had led to various diversions of traffic near important areas like Sion, so it was impossible to take up the scheme,'' said an official of the undertaking. But with the completion of seven flyovers expected within the next three months, hopes of the scheme finally taking off have brightened. However, traffic police are sour over the demand of chairman of BEST Committee to Chief Minister Narayan Rane for special powers to remove taxi stands and private vehicles along the lane. In a letter to CM recently, Nerkar had claimed that the traffic police expressed difficulty in doing so due to paucity of manpower.

``We have been after the BEST and the BMC to start the project, since we believe that its success will lead to more people taking to public transport,'' said a traffic official. Yadav, however, noted that the traffic police are allowed to divert taxi-stands and private parkingonlytemporarily. ``In order to make them permanent, we will need the permission of the Regional Transport Authority headed by the Transport Secretary,'' he added.

The authorities are hoping that the project will evoke a good response. ``If the scheme succeeds here we will repeat it all over the city,'' said Yadav.