City: Mumbai

Egg prices shoot up in Mumbai due to shortage The price of eggs has gone up in the city due to a shortage in supply caused by the extended winter season, which led to a decrease in production. There is a shortage of 10 lakh chicken eggs in Mumbai daily and the cost per dozen has increased from 66 rupees to over 80 rupees. In November, the wholesale rate of 100 eggs was around Rs 475 to Rs 500, which has now touched Rs 600. The Department of Animal Husbandry in Maharashtra is developing a long-term policy that would enable…

Whether a stampede may recur at a railway station you use everyday, whether property prices in your suburb will appreciate with the addition of a modern mass transit system, whether decrepit chawl buildings will be redeveloped before they collapse, each of these quintessentially Mumbai concerns, are or should be, addressed through an urban planning exercise. Unknown to us, urban planners’ designs and agencies implementing them dictate how far from work we live, how we commute to work, what quality of life we may enjoy, how tools such as floor space index and transferable development rights may densify a particular area,…

Versova intrigues me greatly. I recently relocated there from another city, and on my way to Madh Island for shoots, I would look out and watch the area intently. One evening, I set out to photograph the area. Versova exudes a very sophisticated vibe as soon as you arrive there. On either side of JP Road are several cafes, restaurants, studios, and casting offices, recruiting actors for films and television. Yari Road and Seven Bungalows are home to high-rise apartments and commercial buildings, some with enviable sea-facing views. A trip away by the Versova jetty is Madh island, a popular…

"In the world of our greatest inventions, the solutions to our biggest problems may be hiding right below our feet.” When we look at urban spaces from a sustainability aspect/the angle of sustainability, it is easy to feel hopeless at times, especially looking at the rate at which the cities are growing, attracting more migration and reducing capacities to look after the needs of the people. An acute lack of space and time — a characteristic of a capitalist lifestyle — impacts all our actions. Challenges such as indiscriminate waste generation and lack of consciousness towards consumerism are difficult to…

PM to bring in a showering of infrastructure projects Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence in Mumbai in the coming week on January 19th is expected to bring about multiple projects in the city. Among these are: seven sewage treatment plants (STP) at different locations across the city; the PM SVANidhi scheme, offering loans to street vendors; bhoomipujan of concrete roads worth Rs 6,000 crore; and the laying of foundation stones for the reconstruction of two civic hospitals. Phase 2 of the metro lines 2A, and 7 may also be on the cards, as well as Navi Mumbai's metro stretch between…

The year 2022 ended with dramatic scenes at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) headquarters. The police stationed at the headquarters had to break off the scuffle between the two Shiv Sena factions. The fight was over the control of the Sena office situated inside the historic BMC building at Fort. Like the Sena, a number of political parties have their offices on the ground floor of the headquarters. However, after the brawl all the party offices were sealed off on the orders of BMC Administrator IS Chahal. This blanket lockdown on their offices has irked politicians across party lines. They…

In a narrow gully in Thane’s Vartak Nagar, a small home-based unit of a contractor is also the assembly point for the area’s women to gather and take raw materials to make keychains. The contractor weighs and counts the keychain parts before wrapping them in a plastic bag. He notes the quantity in his diary and a small notebook that each woman carries with her. “Kal ka kitna bana (How many did you make yesterday),” the contractor asks each woman, who deposits the previous day’s keychains with him as he again records the quantity they have submitted. The women take…

With a timeline of at least 15 years, the Dharavi redevelopment project is not expected to bear fruit anytime soon. Neither the residents, the established businesses, nor the winning bidder, the Adani group, have any illusions of a quick transformation to the area that has evolved over a century; spanning over 250 hectares, 8.5 lakh residents and 20,000 businesses and industries. But change is very much on its way. The Maharashtra government aims to get this long-promised project started in 6 months. The race to kickstart the redevelopment has been on, however, ever since September last year, when the government…

BMC to spend Rs 6,080 crore to concrete 400-km of roads, allots contracts to large firms The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be spending Rs 6,080 crores to concrete 400 km of Mumbai's roads. The civic body has selected five large construction firms with a track record in building national highways to carry out the job, effectively eliminating small road contractors in order to fulfil the largest-ever civic contract. The road contractors will be responsible to maintain the roads for a period of ten years. Three contracts amounting to Rs 4,000 crore have been allotted to western suburbs. The contract…

"I have heard that Adani has taken over redevelopment of Dharavi but we know very little about it. But if we are moved from here, our livelihoods will take a hit," says Vasudev Poonchakarmi, a sanitation worker in Dharavi. The 50-year-old has been living in Shahu Nagar within Dharavi since childhood. His parents grew up in the area, so did his grandparents. Like him, his children are sanitation workers there. The news of Adani Group, owned by Gautam Adani, Asia's richest man, winning the bid to redevelop Asia's largest slum spread over 240 hectares, has seeped into the everyday conversations…