Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation

Be it Fashion Street, Linking Road, Colaba Causeway or the buzzing Khau Gallis offering a variety of delicacies in various localities, Mumbai is known by its lively street markets run by hawkers. They have a distinct character that attracts shoppers from Mumbai and outside, and have even become a tourist attraction.  The book shops on pavements around Flora Fountain, which were an enduring source of knowledge, now invoke nostalgic memories for generations of book lovers. Similarly, Chor Bazaar is a source of art installations and furniture for art connoisseurs and collectors. Several useful services from typists to affidavit papers to…

The Bombay High Court (HC) recently came down heavily against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) demanding that BMC ensure that Mumbai’s footpaths be made walkable for pedestrians especially for handicapped and senior citizens. The HC suo moto asked BMC to clarify its policy on permitting various facilities on footpaths that hampered smooth movement of pedestrians. It took into consideration that walking on Mumbai footpaths has become dangerous as they are uneven, broken, disjointed or encroached and hence, unavailable to walk. Are footpaths in Mumbai dangerous? About 51% of all trips made by Mumbaikars are on foot. Even those who travel…

On February 4th, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) presented a budget of Rs 52,619.07 crore for the year 2023-24. This marked a significant moment in the city's history, as Commissioner IS Chahal, serving as an administrator in the absence of an elected council, drafted and then presented and approved the budget. The BMC had earlier invited suggestions on the budget from the public. Chahal told the press that municipal corporation had received 965 suggestions "many of which were incorporated in the budget". Read more: BMC budget wishlist, from various experts in their field He said, "For example, we have allotted Rs…

The term of the municipal councillors of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India's richest civic body, came to an end in March 2022. With elections delayed, control of the corporation fell into the hands of Commissioner IS Chahal. With him at the helm, BMC had its second administrator in decades. It has been nearly a year now since the elections have not been held and Chahal continues to run the corporation without a body of public representatives or a mayor. This meant that the municipal commissioner not only drafted the 2023-2024 civic budget but also personally presented and approved it…

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,…

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…

Durga has been setting up an all-night tea stall for the last seven to eight years. It was going good until COVID-19 disrupted everything in 2020 and 2021. On any usual night, she stands close to a 24x7 medical shop, piggybacking on its bright florescent light, with a large tea dispenser kept on a plastic stool, and tries to pull in new customers who are either passing by on foot or on their two-wheelers. Her husband, Sachin, helps her handle customers during the peak hours—12 am to 2 am. "Sir, chai, cigarette," she repeats in the hope of attracting customers.…

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) is over, marking another close to global discourse on climate emergency. Amidst proclamations made on a global and national scale, Mumbai became the first Indian city to receive an 'A' on the CDP's 5th Annual Cities Report, which rates cities on the basis of their environmental action and transparency. To know and understand the details of this, Citizen Matters spoke to Saurabh Punamiya Jain, the former research and policy secretary to the former Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Aaditya Thackeray. He played an important part in drafting the Mumbai Climate Action Plan…

On December 1st, Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital became the first civic facility in the city to get approval for a 24x7 cardiac catheterisation lab. The approval comes a month after the announcement was first made in November. A cardiac cath lab functions as a centre for doctors to perform minimally invasive tests and procedures to diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease. It is the alarming rise in deaths due to heart attacks in 2021 that prompted Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) health officials to start a pilot 24x7 cath lab at KEM. Last year, Mumbai recorded a total of 17,880…

Rumours of child kidnappings on the internet rise time and time again. They are easy fodder on social media and messaging applications, featuring audiovisual media or text warning of child kidnappings at mass. With content that is often alarming, depicting a scary tale of children in danger, they prey on the concerns of parents and teachers. Mumbai is not immune to this. This past September, viral messages and social media posts of child kidnappings rumours led to an atmosphere of fear and suspicion in many pockets of the city, including Kanjurmarg, Ghatkopar, Andheri, Jogeshwari, etc. In one instance, two suspected…