EDITORS' PICK

On March 21st, Citizen Matters hosted a tweet chat to discuss the recently launched Mumbai Climate Plan (MCAP) with Lubaina Rangawala, Tanmay Takle and Saurabh Punamiya. After its inception in 2021, the MCAP was opened up to suggestions and criticisms from citizens, environmental experts and other stakeholders. This creates an opportunity for the city to work with the government towards an effective climate policy, as we stand at a critical juncture in Mumbai’s climate history. The tweet chat addressed points from the Plan to understand whether the Mumbai government is truly prepared for the climate crisis, and where the city…

Mohammed Irshad, a garment worker in Dharavi, recalls being gripped by the fear of policemen lathi-charging him when he would step out in search of odd jobs during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. His garment unit was shut down. He wasn’t the only one, and many workers were suddenly faced with a crisis that appeared to have no solution ahead. Laxmi Kamble, co-ordinator with Acorn Foundation, which distributed food and ration kits during the lockdown, recalls the humiliation, desperation and embarrassment faced by workers, who were suddenly stuck with no tiffin service or hotels, no vessels to make food and no…

Modern lifestyles in cities often see most of us buying more, despite the acclaimed ‘Refuse, Reuse, Reduce, Repurpose and Recycle’ mantra. When tired of the clutter, we repurpose pre-owned belongings like old clothes and toys by passing them on to domestic help. But, a step further could help support underprivileged communities throughout the country. There are many organisations in Mumbai supporting local communities in need by distributing pre-owned items in the city and rural Maharashtra. “We can’t say we’re solving the poverty crisis, but there’s a need and we’re filling it,” says Pradeep Tripathi, founder of Green Yatra, a foundation…

On February 25th, a meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority chaired by Lt Governor Anil Baijal decided to lift all COVID related restrictions, and announced that schools will be fully offline from April 1st. In less than 24 hours, Baijal received a representation from the National Progressive Schools' Conference — an association of senior secondary schools across the country — welcoming the reopening of schools, but wanted him to advance the opening date. Open the schools fully by March 2nd, they said, as they had observed a “huge learning gap in children from nursery to class 8”. In the letter,…

Archana Yadav of Mumbai is an excited soul today. In just a few days, she will be starting classes under a free skilling programme offered in Kandivali under the Skill India initiative and hopes that it will help her secure a much-needed job in the domain of nursing. Archana knows the trials of having to look for a job without formally acquired skills or certification. Pre-pandemic she had been working as an unpaid trainee in an orthopaedic clinic in Mumbai, in the hope that the skills acquired in this position would help her get a better job in the future.…

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…

Chennai saw unprecedented flooding the past year during the monsoon. Many streets were water-logged for days and residents marooned until the water receded. Analysis of the various reasons behind inundation in different parts of the city pointed to poor stormwater drain networking, poor construction of drains and loss of water bodies such as ponds and lakes to encroachment.  In addition to issues of flooding, loss of water bodies also leads to the loss of ecosystems that are supported by it. This is surely a cause for alarm in Chennai. The story of one such water body, a pond in Kolathur,…

The children used to come every evening after school, armed with cricket bats and balls, badminton racquets and footballs. They would descend upon the Chennai Corporation playground at RA Puram in droves, challenging one another to earnest matches. Anyone driving past on RK Mutt road or Brodies Castle road could see the children at play, occasionally catching thrilling glimpses of solemn contests, joyous victory, or bitter defeat. The kids have all but disappeared today, for CMRL has taken over the playground to undertake work relating to Phase 2 Corridor 3 of the metro expansion plans. The walking tracks in Panagal Park,…

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…

On February 1st, the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the union budget for 2022-23, announced a plan to steer urban planning and development, referring to the fact that by 2047, half of India’s population will be urban. Her budget speech proposed nurturing of megacities to become centres of economic growth and preparing tier 2 and 3 to take on a similar path in the future. Her proposal included setting up a high-level committee consisting of urban planners, urban economists and institutions to make recommendations on urban sector policies, capacity building, planning, implementation, and governance.  As our cities grow larger,…