City: Mumbai

It's snake time of the year! Flower pots, piles of garden leaves, rubble heaps and discarded pipes are a few of the places where snakes feel safe. During the rainy season, they leave their often water-logged hideouts to get some warmth in the sun, which is why we're more likely to see them in our urban habitats at this time. We often see the staff of Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC) working in areas where snakes are known to be found, and this was something that had been bothering us for a while. Whether sweeping the streets, or clearing the weeds…

Rivers breach banks Several rivers that run through the Mumbai Metropolitan Region have breached their banks due to extreme heavy rains. Areas in and around Kalyan, Badlapur, Ambernath, Ulhasnagar, and Bhiwandi are majorly flooded with immense risk to daily life and people. Around 5000 people from these areas were evacuated to safety sites in schools and community halls. Jagbudi and Kodvali rivers in Ratnagiri also crossed their assigned danger marks which led to heavy flooding of the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Low-lying areas like Vasai, Virar, and Nalasopara were ill-equipped to deal with subsequent waterlogging. Fire officials moved residents in informal housing…

On 18 July, Renita D’Souza and her family woke up with neck deep water in their house at Hanuman Nagar slum along the storm water drains. They found themselves surrounded by houses laced with dirt. “Our house was full of muck and we had to wade through a foot-deep grime throughout the day and there was no water to either drink or clean up," she said.  The electricity supply to their house was disconnected as a precautionary measure. The entire neighbourhood could not light gas stoves. “We had to ask our children to buy vada pav because we couldn’t even…

The deadline for the “Housing for All by 2022” Mission is a few months away, but we have some way to go. I would like to draw public attention to a very critical subject - the land at Rifle Range Santa Cruz (CTS 12), Mumbai 400029 / 400055. It may not be critical for everybody but it definitely is for those residing on the land. Defence land, Golibar The land belongs to Air Force Station Mumbai, Ministry of Defence, Government of India as per the property card and records held by the Office of Defence Estate Officer, Mumbai. The said…

The union cabinet approval of the new Model Tenancy Act on 2 June is causing unease among the 2.5 million tenants in Mumbai, especially those who have rented flats under the Pagdi system.   A pagdi system is a legal tenancy system that flourished in the 1940s in which tenants are part owners and the tenancy can be sold after sharing a part of the proceeds with the landlord. Unlike a regular rental property, where a tenant pays a deposit while moving in, in a Pagdi system, the tenant pays 60-75% of the market price to the property owner and…

Permanent road closure in south Mumbai The traffic police has announced to "All vehicular traffic plying from Eastern Freeway's down ramp and MbPT Road via Wadala going towards P D'Mello Road as well as all vehicular traffic plying from Wadi Bunder Junction, P D'Mello Road, going towards Wadala via MbPT Road under the Freeway at Orange Gate Junction is permanently closed". The closure comes as a consequence of construction and development that Mumbai Port is undertaking on Marina Bay. In the notification issued on July 8, Pravinkumar Padwal, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) said that to prevent any danger, acting…

NatConnect Foundation aims to protect and conserve the environment in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Citizen Matters spoke to NatConnet director B N Kumar, who is also a media veteran.  What are major environmental issues facing Mumbai's coastal areas. How will these impact Mumbai’s biodiversity? For long, authorities have been unconcerned and apathetic about Mumbai's ecology. It has become customary and almost an annual event for the people to suffer floods and city shutdown. But the deluge of 2006, somehow, made people realise that the destruction of mangroves has also contributed to the disaster. Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the ever-extending and…

On Sunday mornings, various groups of citizens are seen cleaning up water bodies in different parts of Mumbai city. Recently, a new initiative to clean up the Bandra Talao (Swami Vivekananda Talao, Bandra) has been started by a group of residents, who believe that rather than complaining to authorities, they should step forward and help to keep their surroundings clean and plastic-free. A walk at Bandra Talao led to the start of this social initiative by Gauri Kulkarni (26), an architect and a Bandra resident. The #ChakaChakBandraTalav (pond) initiative was started after Kulkarni clicked photos of garbage dumped at the…

About a month ago, on 12th June 2021, the square bastion tower on the periphery of Belapur Fort premises, in Navi Mumbai, collapsed. It had been raining heavily in Navi Mumbai and it seems that this, together with the strong winds, caused a large part of the tower, to crash in a heap of rubble. The bastion tower is located opposite the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) headquarters, and is the only piece of the 'fort', visible to external passers-by. "Videos were doing the rounds in social media, and this is what brought our attention to heritage that is situated…

Conservation Action Trust is a Mumbai-based non-profit organisation formed to protect the environment, particularly forests and wildlife. The main purpose of the Trust is to educate and enlighten decision makers and the public about the importance of forests for our survival. The role of forests in protecting the water security of the country is one of the major thrust areas of CAT. Debi Goenka is an Executive Trustee at Conservation Action Trust and a well-known environmentalist. Citizen Matters spoke to him about the threat to mangroves in Mumbai and other serious environmental concerns in the city. Vashi Creek and the Mangrove…