Articles by Sabah Virani

For a majority of the population, moving homes is typically a voluntary decision made with great deliberation, taking into account the impact on education, employment and health. However, for the millions of slum residents in Mumbai, the same exercise is a result of routine eviction and demolitions. If these families are fortunate, they are moved to slum resettlements. Consider the case of one of the largest slum resettlement drives in Mumbai, documented through the eyes of women by Ramya Ramanath in her book, A Place To Call Home: Women as Agents of Change in Mumbai. An associate professor at DePaul University,…

This is the second and final part in the series on the history of building regulations in Mumbai. This part continues where the first left off, at the turn of the twentieth century amidst the administration's efforts at slum clearance. The Development Plan Preoccupation with affordable rents and slum clearance remained the mainstay of urban planning and governance in the 20th century. At the same time, efforts to address issues such as access to open spaces, amenities and concerns of over-crowding, traffic on roads were formalised and debated upon. The very first Development Plan was introduced in 1964 and sanctioned…

This article is part one of a series looking at how the history of building regulations and development has shaped the built environment of Mumbai. Part two will delve into the changes in building regulations over the twentieth century, through suburbanisation, the development plans and liberalisation. Ask Mumbaikars about the housing problem in the city, and you’re likely to get a different take on the issue from each one. Some will be up in arms about the pervasiveness of slums, which they call ‘encroachments’. Others will point to the absence of affordable housing, laying the blame on either the gaps…

At the beginning of this year, the freshly minted electric Yulu bikes were taking their baby steps in Bandra West. The Bangalore-based company had just started branching out of its base in Mumbai, the commercial Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) district, hoping to become the vehicle of choice for app-based delivery workers. “Because of COVID-19, home delivery has become so common. There suddenly is an explosion of people saying ‘Why should I go out if I can order in with a few clicks on my phone?’,” Hemant Gupta, co-founder and COO of Yulu/the company had told us, explaining the pivot from last-mile connectivity to…

Two years ago, the Bandra West railway station area used to be crowded, chaotic and messy. Commuters heading towards the trains jostled not only with those leaving, but also with the many rickshaws, share-rickshaw drivers, vehicles and occasional hawkers vying for their attention. Vehicles squeezed past each other narrowly, making it unsafe for pedestrians. “I used to take the train to work every day for eight years,” recalls Samir D’Monte, founder and principal architect at SDM Architects. “I realised then that there was a lot of scope for improvement.” Sketching out a few plans for reworking the railway station area,…

In an earlier article, we investigated the pervasive pattern of unfilled seats reserved under the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Here, we spend an evening at an RTE verification centre in suburban Mumbai, talking to parents and a member of the RTE verification committee about the admission process. On the afternoon of May 27th, I met 3 mothers waiting in worry to secure admission for their children to different private schools. They were at the Gilbert Hill MNP Urdu School for the verification of their documents. This was no routine admission step; their children were among the select few that…

A viewing deck over a stormwater outfall in Dadar that looks out onto the sea. Solar-powered electric poles shaped like a tree. Multi-coloured and fun-shaped zebra crossings near school gates. These ideas may seem unrelated, but they share a common thread; they all come under the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s new push towards ‘tactical urbanism’. Starting January, the drive has sparked off several projects to enhance livability in the city, often on a pilot basis and in local pockets. Some of the steps taken under it are fairly simple and ordinary, such as planting trees along roads, refurbishing bus stops,…

Kranti Nagar, an informal settlement in Kandivali East, is not an area you would expect to be flooded so heavily during every monsoon. It has none of the features that typically characterise areas prone to waterlogging in Mumbai: low-lying, close to the coast, concretised, with scarce greenery around. Instead, it is quite the opposite. The informal settlement begins in forest land, at the foothills of the 103.84 sq km Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). It is on an incline, till it meets the more-or-less even terrain of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) territory. While you would expect waterlogging on this flat-landing…

Mumbai has more than 100 flood-prone areas and around 300 landslide-prone areas vulnerable to the monsoons. According to the Vulnerability Assessment of the Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP), 35.3% of the city’s population are at risk of being exposed to floods, since they are within 250 metres of the hotspots. Monsoon preparedness measures attempt to lower the risk and loss of life in case of heavy rains and potential hazards. “The task of disaster management is to give relief,” says Prabhat Rahangdale, former deputy municipal commissioner (disaster management). “When disaster does strike, it is preemptive preparation that makes the most difference.”  That…

This monsoon, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to help Mumbaikars brace themselves for days of heavy rain through a disaster management app. Accurate information and warnings are of utmost importance at such times, as they can help people make better decisions about their safety. The mobile application Disaster Management BMC, available on both iOS and Android, will be relaunched to keep citizens informed about the state of monsoon. It was first launched in 2016 but failed to reach the masses. Through this app, areas likely to be waterlogged will be flagged anywhere between six to 72 hours in advance,…