City: Mumbai

On February 3rd, India's richest civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)'s commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal unveiled the civic budget for the financial year 2022-23. The budget for this year is a whopping Rs 45,949.21 crore, a 17.70% jump from the previous year (Rs 39,038.83 crore). The focus of this year's allocation is on health, infrastructure and education. We've highlighted key points from the budget announcement. Big developmental projects Rs 3,200 crore for the Mumbai Coastal Road project Rs 1,300 crore for the Goregaon Mukund Rail projectNew security systems like Boom Barrier and Hand Metal Detectors to be installed at…

Mumbai Coastal Road project given priority in 2022-23 budget In the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)'s 2021-22 budget for Mumbai, Rs 3500 crore was allocated to the Coastal Road project, 50% of which has been completed. For the financial year 2022-23, Rs 3200 crore has been allocated for a 90% completion of it. The base construction cost of the project is 8,429.44 crore, and Rs 12,950 crore including taxes, supervision charges, consultancy charges and others. A total of Rs 22,647 crore has been allocated for capital expenditure for spending on projects dealing with infrastructure, drainage systems and water supply. Source: Mid…

Since 2012, I've been working towards building a strong culture of cycling in Mumbai, way before I was appointed bicycle mayor of Mumbai. I’m not a transport planner, architect or urban planner. My work does not lie in an area where I can bring infrastructural change. But, my years of experience in advocating for non-motorised vehicles has helped me build a dialogue with authorities. The work of bicycle mayors is multifold. We work in different areas. Either you’re building a cycling culture, or you’re in transport planning and infrastructure (installing cycling stands, for example). There is also policy intervention, where…

When trees in Mumbai are cut, public furore is a typical response, for good reason. But what often goes unnoticed is the concretisation of trees, a practice that results in the same end. Trees in-between spaces meant for roads, footpaths, and parking, are often engulfed by construction and repair work. The tree floor is left covered under thick impenetrable concrete. This is despite a National Green Tribunal (NGT) ruling to keep a 1-metre radius around a tree, free of concrete and construction. “I noticed the concretised trees in the open gym at the Bandra Physical Culture Association ground a month ago,” says…

On January 27th, Citizen Matters hosted a webinar on the state of urban planning in Mumbai to address discrepancies in the city's socio-economic, infrastructure and environmental planning. Moderated by Meenakshi Ramesh, Trustee of Citizen Matters, the panel consisted of people from backgrounds of architecture, urban planning, anthropology and education. The panelists were Rejeet Mathews, program director for urban development at WRI India, Aslam Saiyad, a photographer and documentarian deeply interested in issues related to riparian communities in Mumbai, Akhtar Chauhan, former director of Rizvi College of Infrastructure, Berjis Driver, an urban planner and associate member of the Institute of Town…

In 2020, while most of our population was quarantined in their homes, my family was lucky to live in a society that allowed us free use of the roof terrace for exercise. My husband, daughter and I often enjoyed morning breakfasts up there, and every evening we made it a point to run around, play and exercise. As the first wave waned, slowly, things started opening up. We were overjoyed. We could finally enjoy watching the sun go down the horizon and be in the greenery to ease our anxieties and move our bodies. What became clearer to us was…

89% COVID-19 samples from Mumbai show presence of Omicron From 280 samples sequenced at civic-run Kasturba Gandhi Hospital, Mumbai, 89% had the Omicron variant of COVID-19. 8% had Delta derivatives, and the remaining 3% had other subtypes. “This explains the reason behind the spike in cases by the end of December last year. As Omicron doesn’t involve the lungs, we are witnessing very few cases of pulmonary pneumonia, which was high in the second wave when Delta variant was predominant in Mumbai,” said Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Source: Indian Express Mumbai's double decker buses to…

Since the onset of the third wave, a surge in home testing for COVID-19 in Mumbai has brought new challenges for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Mylab Discovery Solutions, the manufacturer of 'CoviSelf', a self-testing kit, which sold about 25,000 kits in Mumbai in December, saw its sales jump to about five lakh on January 7th. By January 11th, 96,000 people in the city had tested themselves using home testing kits. Of these, 3,000 had tested positive according to Mumbai's mayor Kishori Pednekar. And with no rule or law in place at that time making it mandatory for those doing home testing to report…

Mumbai's population growth is attributed to the influx of migrants due to the textile mill boom in the 1900s. By 1921, migrants made up about 84% of the city's population. Historically, Mumbai's large migrant population has been its backbone. However, since the dissolution of the mills, Mumbai went from an industrial hub to a service industry hub, changing migration patterns from intrastate to interstate. For a long time since this shift, migrants have been blamed for 'stealing' jobs from locals, and for contributing to the city's vastly spread slum habilitation. However, contrary to the opinion that migration to Mumbai from…

Like millions of Mumbaikars, Prashant, a diamond broker, does the first leg of his journey to work by the local train. But on descending at Bandra station, he switches to the Yulu bike, a means of transport available only to those who work at Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). Stationed at Anant Kanekar Marg, the powder blue electric bikes are lined up with no apparent lock in place. Named ‘Miracle’, they are lighter and thinner than a scooter, faster than a bicycle. To unlock, one has to download the Yulu bike app and scan the QR code displayed on the stem…