Articles by Hepzi Anthony

On August 27, a portion of a three-storied building collapsed in Nagpada. Two people, including a 12-year-old girl, were killed. The building was dilapidated and had long standing plans to be redeveloped. Despite the collapse, residents refused to vacate the building. “They kept saying that our part of the building is fine and we will continue to stay here. They didn’t want to shift to transit camps in distant suburbs. The fire brigade and the civic authorities had to disconnect their water and electricity connections to get them to vacate their building,” said Amin Patel, local legislator from Mumbadevi constituency,…

Both the Western and Eastern coastlines of Mumbai are in for a sea change. While a Rs 14,000 crore Coastal Road Project is being implemented on the Western coastline, different groups are proposing vastly varied ideas for the 21-km Eastern side that stretches from the Bombay Dockyard to Wadala. What Mumbai Port Trust wants to do The Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT), which oversees the planning for the Eastern Waterfront project has decided to commercially develop 25.63% of land, another 23.26% will be used for ecotourism and 10.76 % to rehouse local slum-dwellers. By ecotourism they mean cruises, a marina, promenades,…

Mumbai, they say, is the city that never sleeps. A good reason for that are the local train lines that connect distant places within the city and certain neighbouring districts as well. From 30 July, entry to the Mumbai suburban rail network will be regulated by a QR-based Electronic-pass system.Local trains were shut for 84-days until 15 June, owing to the lockdown to curtail the spread of COVID-19. After which, they began to function in some measure. Currently, the Central Railways and Western Railways of the Mumbai suburban rail network operate only 350 services each daily. These were allowed to…

When the lockdown was initially announced on March 24th, many in the art fraternity failed to grasp its impact. Innovative installation artist Hetal Shukla was in fact still considering his trip to Dubai and scheduling his sponsored exhibition on 150 years of Mahatma Gandhi in Germany. As the lockdown kept on getting extended, the 150 artworks on Gandhi stayed put at Mani Bhavan, air travel got restricted and today he is wondering how he will pay his six-odd staff, who have been with him for over two decades. "I managed to pay their April salaries but slashed it thereafter since I am struggling myself,"…

When Mumbai’s lifeline, the suburban train services were abruptly halted on March 24th, as the country went into a lockdown that would stretch for weeks, the city’s public bus service, BEST, rose to the occassion to single-handedly keep the city running. At the height of the COVID lockdown, BEST buses were the only transport available in the city, transporting essential services workers to their work places and back. BEST ran special services to ferry COVID warriors to hospitals, banks and other essential locations. With most of Mumbai’s municipal, health and other essential service workers living in distant suburbs, and some…

It is that time of the year again. When it rains, rather pours, in Mumbai ( the Mumbai region has the second highest rainfall in the country after Cheerapunji). And then the blame game begins to divert attention from the flooding of the city, loss of lives and livelihoods, and health issues.  Brihanmumai Municipal Commissioner (BMC) Iqbal Singh Chahal claims that the city is all set to meet the rains with its over 2900-km long storm water drain network -- all desilted and cleaned up, despite the COVID crisis and large-scale labour migration. Chahal announced that BMC has already surpassed…

It is that time of the year again. When it rains, rather pours, in Mumbai ( the Mumbai region has the second highest rainfall in the country after Cheerapunji). And then the blame game begins to divert attention from the flooding of the city, loss of lives and livelihoods, and health issues.  Brihanmumai Municipal Commissioner (BMC) Iqbal Singh Chahal claims that the city is all set to meet the rains with its over 2900-km long storm water drain network -- all desilted and cleaned up, despite the COVID crisis and large-scale labour migration. Chahal announced that BMC has already surpassed…

While the lockdown may have seen a comeback of birds and animals in urban areas, for forest officers, the period has also meant more work thwarting and catching miscreants in the forests in and around cities. For the first time, Maharashtra officials are conducting drone surveillance to monitor and protect the flora and fauna in the wilds. Maharashtra has about 6733 sq km of protected forests (including six national parks, 48 wildlife sanctuaries and three conservation reserves) covering over 3.03% of its total geographical area of 307,713 sq kms, as per the India State of Forest Report, 2019. Historically, a severely short-staffed…

The government may have finally opened up movement for stranded migrant workers after a gap of 40 days, but their problems are far from over. In fact, a new set of ordeals seems to await the migrant, most of them daily wagers, as they are now forced to queue up in front of police stations in the quest for travel permits, after spending weeks in queues for food and rations.  Despite the central directive, uncertainty reigns supreme over the facilitation of their travel back home.  The first thing that 31-year-old Anwar Hussain and his eight colleagues, all daily wage labourers…

The government may have finally opened up movement for stranded migrant workers after a gap of 40 days, but their problems are far from over. In fact, a new set of ordeals seems to await the migrant, most of them daily wagers, as they are now forced to queue up in front of police stations in the quest for travel permits, after spending weeks in queues for food and rations.  Despite the central directive, uncertainty reigns supreme over the facilitation of their travel back home.  The first thing that 31-year-old Anwar Hussain and his eight colleagues, all daily wage labourers…