City: Mumbai

Cleanup Marshals are back in Mumbai “The Cleanup Marshal” scheme has been reintroduced by the BMC from 2nd April after a gap of two years. The scheme has been launched on a pilot basis in the A Ward. The marshals are now equipped with a mobile app via which they can issue penalty receipts to people caught littering. When launched earlier, there were complaints that the marshals were not issuing receipts and were carrying out extortion of tourists: the reason why the scheme was discontinued by the BMC in 2011. This system does away with physical receipts. Penalties can also…

Name: Shrikant Shinde Constituency: Kalyan Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde’s son Shrikant Shinde is an orthopaedic surgeon and now a full time politician. The two term MP from Kalyan constituency is getting groomed to be the second most powerful leader in Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena faction, after his father. Shrikant is a fresh face in the Maharashtra Politics. In 2014, this young politician was in the final year of M.S. (Orthopaedics) when he became MP for the 16th Lok Sabha at the age of 27 - the youngest Maratha member of the parliament ever. In the year 2019, he got…

Name: Poonam Vajendla Rao alias Poonam Mahajan Constituency: Mumbai North Central Poonam Mahajan is a two-time Lok Sabha MP who has represented the Mumbai-North-Central constituency in the 16th (2014) and 17th (2019) Lok Sabha sessions. In the 2019 general elections, 53.97% of the votes were cast in Poonam's favour as opposed to her closest rival, Priya Dutt of the Indian National Congress, who got 39.55% of the votes cast by the 8.95 lakh voters. Poonam defeated Priya by 1,30,005 votes, a margin lesser compared to 2014 when she won by a margin of 1.86 lakh votes. Poonam is the daughter of…

When I moved to Mumbai in June 2023 for work, I found myself going for sight seeing to the city's tourist destinations. Though the city appeared to have consistent and wide footpaths almost everywhere, vehicular right of way seemed to be prioritised over the pedestrian right of way. This struck me as very strange, even as I continued to enjoy walking through lanes of Mumbai very much. On one hand, there is excellent footpath coverage, utilised by large crowds everywhere. On the other hand, speeding vehicles create obstacles for something as simple as crossing the road.  "Though Mumbai appeared to…

Manual scavenging deaths Three labourers died when they fell into a 15-foot underground drain when they were cleaning the sewer chamber of a public toilet on Thursday. The incident occurred at Malwani Gate number 8 at Abdul Hameed Road in Ambujwadi in Malad. The men who died were 18-year old Suraj Kevat, his brother, 20-year old Bikas Kevat, and their father, 45-year old Ramlagan Kevat. According to a senior BMC official, one of them fell into the sewer chamber while cleaning the toilet and the other two men jumped in to save him. All three were pulled out by locals,…

A popular quote by WH Auden says, "Thousands have lived without love, not one without water." I am deeply convinced that it is true, especially in present times, where the planned urban cities are facing acute water shortage on a regular basis, along with rural and remote areas. One of them is Dombivli. Dombivli, with its rapidly expanding population and insufficient infrastructure, has been grappling with water scarcity for years. I live in an integrated smart city with more than 100 residential buildings built near Dombivli. Currently almost 2,00,000 citizens reside in more than a 1000 flats. Facilities such as…

As India gets ready to vote to decide who will represent them in Parliament, Citizen Matters is speaking to elected Parliamentary representatives from Mumbai. We will ask them about the work they have done for the city, policies they have supported and why Mumbaikars should cast votes in their favour (or of their political parties). As part of this series, we spoke to Gajanan Kirtikar, who represented Mumbai North West for the past two terms. He is an active Parliamentarian who was one of top 10 MPs who asked the maximum number of questions during their tenure, according to a report…

Name: Gajanan Kirtikar  Constituency: Mumbai North West Gajanan Kirtikar, 80 is an old hand in Maharashtra politics and has risen up the ranks of his party. He has always been with the Shiv Sena, having been part of the core team of Bal Thackeray, subsequently working under Uddhav Thackeray. He chose to move to the Shiv Sena faction led by present chief minister Eknath Shinde.  He served as a legislator for four terms between 1990 to 2009 and then entered the Parliament for two terms from 2014. He also served as the minister of state for home and tourism and…

Bhushan Gagrani replaces Iqbal Singh Chahal as BMC Commissioner On Monday, the Election Commission of India (ECI) asked the Maharashtra Chief Secretary to immediately transfer the Commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, Iqbal Singh Chahal. Besides this, it also asked for the transfer of all Additional Municipal Commissioners and Deputy Municipal Commissioners, who have been in their current posting for over three years and are posted in their home district in Maharashtra. Soon after taking charge from Iqbal Singh Chahal, new BMC Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani addressed a meeting for monsoon preparedness. Pic: BMC via Twitter (X) On Wednesday, the ECI…

As India gets ready to vote to decide who will represent them in Parliament, Citizen Matters is speaking to elected Parliamentary representatives from Mumbai. We will ask them about the work they have done for the city, policies have they supported and why Mumbaikars should cast votes in their favour (or of their political parties). As part of this series, we spoke to Gopal Shetty, who represented Mumbai North for the past two terms. Shetty has now been replaced by Piyush Goyal by his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who will be seeking votes based on the work done by…