Post by Saurabh Jain-Punamiya

Five years ago at COP26 in Glasgow, Andy Burnham sat with Maharashtra’s then Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray and listened closely as we explained how Mumbai’s BEST buses combined some of the world’s lowest fares with an ambition to bring 10,000 electric buses onto the city’s roads. Since then, Manchester and Mumbai have travelled in strikingly different directions. Burnham used franchising to bring routes, timetables and fares back under local public control through the Bee Network, introducing a £2 fare cap and retaining it even when the national cap rose. Mumbai rolled out parts of its electric-bus ambition, yet BEST’s own fleet was subsequently allowed to shrink as wet-leasing expanded, fares doubled and millions of working people were left with a weaker public service. As Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I have written about that early conversation, the political choices that followed and how a small promise made in Glasgow eventually took me to Old Trafford and fulfilled a boyhood dream. #AndyBurnham #Mumbai #Manchester #PublicTransport #BeeNetwork #PoliticalLeadership