City: Mumbai

With a growing population of over 12 million, Mumbai generates 2,700 - 3,000 million litres of sewage everyday. But just as water needs to be purified before it is fit for drinking, sewage needs treatment before it re-enters the water cycle. Untreated sewage is a dangerous mix of bacteria and organic matter, making it an excellent breeding ground for diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, gastroenteritis, hepatitis B, etc. Once in water, it also wreaks havoc in the environment of marine organisms, stealing from their oxygen stores, suffocating and eventually feeding on them. At present, sewage treatment in the city is divided…

Congestion and pollution in Mumbai is an ever-increasing, annual problem. By 2030, transport emissions will replace industrial fumes to become the biggest contributor to air pollution in Mumbai. One wonders, then, why the demand for a livelihood in what is now arguably a difficult city to live in, is still so high. Why do citizens put up with slow development and still pay the highest taxes? Metro work seems to have slowed down, while other bridges and coastal roads continue to be prioritised. Potholes, illegal parking and unattended vehicles obstructing pathways are ignored in many parts of town. As Mumbai…

BMC elections likely to be held in October According to sources, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections for 2022 are likely to be pushed to October. This is due to the temporary halt in judicial proceedings for the reservation of Other Backward Castes (OBC) seats in the local elections. The state government passed a resolution in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly that local body elections will not take place without OBC reservation. In a protest conducted by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on March 9th, BJP leader Chandrakant Patil told the media that BMC elections may be postponed by 6 months.…

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election is an election of members who govern Greater Mumbai. The BMC is Asia's largest municipal corporation and elections for its members are scheduled to be held in April 2022. The current tenure of the sitting corporators came to an end in February 2022, and on March 8th, current municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal was appointed as administrator of the city, in the backdrop of delayed civic polls. A study conducted by the non-profit organisation Praja has revealed that 90% of Mumbai’s corporators have performed poorly based on criteria set by the organisation, with only two corporators scoring “A”. The…

Municipal councillors in Mumbai are elected officials for a city’s municipal corporation. They play a critical role in the development and functioning of the city as the primary facilitator between citizens and the state government.   What does a councillor do within their constituency? Councillors in Mumbai execute various developmental procedures in their constituency through the Rs 1.5 crore per annum of local area development fund granted to their local ward by the Brihanmumbai Mumbai Corporation (BMC). A further Rs 60 lakhs of discretionary funds are allocated to every councillor to be spent on their constituency for work they deem as…

The 6th report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), titled, 'IPCC 6th Assessment Report Working Group II (AR6)' was released globally on February 28th. Analysing environments of 195 member countries, the report has, this year, revealed that the global climate crisis is possibly much worse than we had thought. It states clearly that around 40% of the world's population is "highly vulnerable" to climate change. The IPCC report refers to Mumbai multiple times and says the city has new challenges ahead as it grapples with coastal degradation and temperature changes. Climate impact on the urban poor Mumbai is…

Higher Secondary Certificate exams begin offline in Maharashtra For the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a state board exam will be conducted offline. Higher secondary Certificate (HSC) exams were cancelled last year due to pandemic restrictions in the second wave. With over 14 lakh students in the state, out of which 3 Lakh are in Mumbai, HSC exams are now being conducted offline in all colleges. While the state board will conduct exams on the entire syllabus, other boards like CBSE and CICSE have conducted semester exams on 50% of the syllabus. Their second semester exams…

Urban planning experts and allied interests have for long grappled with exactly how much open space Mumbai needs, and what more can be done to improve Mumbai’s natural environment. Given the likely impacts of climate change, especially in the context of the latest IPCC report warning the city of climate change catastrophes, urban planning in Mumbai appears to have reached a critical point of inquiry.  Extensive research already outlines Mumbai’s open space deficit as an outcome of administrative disputes, land availability, acquisition financing, lack of holistic policy implementation, and other reasons across social, economic and environmental aspects. While the search…

Mumbai is the most stressful city to drive in globally, according to a study by Hiyacar, a UK based car sharing company. It is also ranked 5th in global vehicular congestion by the TomTom traffic index of 2021, a global traffic index. Not surprisingly, traffic congestion, road rage incidents and the stress of commuting long distances to work is adversely affecting the physical and mental health of drivers. Additionally, the state of the city’s roads, poorly built, burdened by pothole and unsafe dividers has led to a 15% increase in road accidents in the first six months of 2021. Deaths…

The Deonar dumping ground has mountains of garbage, some reaching 18 floors high, having accumulated 18.35 million tonnes and counting. Years have passed since the government agreed to close the facility, Mumbai's oldest. Its most recent deadline, 2023, is fast approaching. But it seems this time the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) might just make the deadline, by switching to a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant. Construction for the Rs 504 crore plant will begin in a month and a half, seven years after it was first announced. Just one clearance, from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), remains. Spread over 12 of…