City: Mumbai

On Friday, November 12, Citizen Matters hosted a webinar on fire safety in Mumbai’s high rises. Following a story that covered the unfortunate fire incident at the 60-storey Avighna Park in Lower Parel, 3 weeks ago, the panel sought to discuss fire safety in Mumbai’s buildings by including subsequent fire tragedies in the city in recent weeks.  The panel consisted of Hemant Parab, Chief Fire Officer, Mumbai Fire Brigade and Chandrashekhar Prabhu, an Indian politician, architect, professor, urban planner and management expert. Arathi Manay, community anchor at Citizen Matters Mumbai and an experienced market research professional, moderated the discussion.  Read…

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has allocated funds to build more public toilets in the city between 2021-22. However, promises made in the previous years remain unfulfilled and public sanitation services in Mumbai are largely inaccessible. What are some of the conditions impacting the construction of public toilets?  In 2020, civic authorities had cleared proposals for 22,770 toilets across the city, but only 20 percent were built till August-September of the same year.  That didn't stop the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) from allocating  Rs 323 crore towards building 20,000 more public toilets in February 2021. Public toilet at Akurli road.…

99% of Mumbai vaccinated at least once, according to BMC data Ninety-nine percent of Mumbai’s population has been vaccinated at least once, according to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) data. BMC said it administered 15.067 million vaccine doses (both doses) until November 10. This includes vaccine doses administered at all private, municipal, state and central government-operated vaccination centres since January 16 this year, when the vaccination drive began across the country. The city's eligible population is 9,236,500. “So far, a total of 9,204,950 beneficiaries have been given their first dose, of which 5,862,933 beneficiaries have received both their doses.” A BMC…

The next election for Mumbai's civic body will be held in February 2022. The Brihanmumbai Mumbai Corporation (BMC) plans to conduct special drives to encourage registration in every ward, particularly targetting first time voters, women and sex workers between 13th and 28th November. The final list of voters will be published on 5 January, 2020. The local elections are to appoint corporators of the 24 wards in Mumbai, amounting to 236 seats. The corporator is the closest elected official to the citizen, responsible for overseeing the essential services in their area, allocating budgets and answering citizens’ grievances. In 2019, voter…

HelpAge India, an NGO that provides information on ageing in India, released an annual survey among 3526 senior citizens across six major cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Chennai) in 2021. The survey found elder abuse to be one of the major concerns in Indian households and old age homes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it reported that 62.1% of the elders polled believed that the pandemic increased the risk of elder abuse. What is elder abuse? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), elder abuse is an act of intentional harm, or the failure to act…

On an average in a year, around 2000 house break-ins and thefts (HBT) take place in Mumbai. A high concentration of these crimes occur in North Central Mumbai, according to a report on the state of law and order in Mumbai in 2020 by the Praja Foundation. Detection for these is below 50%. Cases have seen a 30% decrease since 2015, but reporting of these cases has also seen a drop. Here are the steps you can take to report a home burglary: Immediate Steps On discovering a burglary, the first step is to inform the police. This can be…

“The stray dog population in India is growing by the day and we need to evolve a strategy to control rabies in India,” said the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), a statutory advisory body advising the Government of India's Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, in a statement on World Rabies Day, September 28 this year. They further observed an urgent need for an effective municipal licensing of pet dogs, and better management and care practices. The Board felt that the sheer magnitude and logistics of catching, neutering, and releasing a number of stray dogs is a challenge…

Mumbai set to get its first new rail corridor in 100 years For the first time in a century, Central railway is set to build a new railway corridor of 17.5 km all the way to South Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT). The project will demolish over 700 structures, rebuilding many that are on the route and diverting the old harbour line to P D’Mello Road. Source: Mid-Day Read more: Mumbai is not fully open until the trains start running Diwali crackers in full force in Mumbai despite strict Supreme Court curbs Representative Image | Source: Wikicommons Despite a…

I am a resident of Dadar Parsi Colony in Mumbai with cerebral palsy. I’ve been using a motorised wheelchair for the past two years. Before that, I used elbow crutches, but a nerve compression in my spine forced me to make the shift to a wheelchair. While a wheelchair could mean more independence to move around, I quickly realised that most of Mumbai’s roads were not accessible to me. The dangerous conditions of road travel in the city made it difficult for me to do basic chores like going to the grocery store, chemist, bank, or visit public spaces recreationally.  My…

In May 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, 14,857 people died in Mumbai. This was over twice the number of deaths that occurred in May of the previous year. Official COVID-19 deaths, however, accounted for barely 15% of them - 1,075 out of 8,014. The number of deaths increased in comparison to 2019 till October 2020. Over the year, they added up to 20,719 more deaths over 2019’s toll, but only around half, 11,116, were officially due to COVID-19. The rest are unexplained. A spike in the number of deaths was seen again with the second wave…