Governance

Families of six workers who worked in a shoe factory in Delhi’s Udyog Vihar, had to wait two days in front of the factory for the charred remains of victims of an industrial fire in the factory on June 23rd this year to be found. The fire broke out in a three-story building trapping 12 workers inside. It took 140 firefighters over six hours to control the fire, rescuing six while the other six died inside the building. On November 13, another fire broke out in a jacket manufacturing factory in Seelampur, Delhi. Five workers were rescued from inside the…

Citizens from Marol are going door-to-door with a signature campaign against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for its failure to retrieve gardens from three hotels on the Marol-Juhu belt near Mumbai airport. The hotels were supposed to hand over the garden plots to BMC for public use. “That these three garden plots, with a cumulative measure of approximately 1.3 lakh sq ft of area, are yet to be accessible for public use, should give us a clue about how public open spaces occupied by private groups, star hotels in this case, are inaccessible in Mumbai’s highly urbanised and congested landscape,”…

The general rule for contesting in a local civic body election is that the person should be more than 21 years of age and should be a resident of Mumbai. Section 14 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 stipulates that the contesting candidate in the BMC elections must be enrolled as a voter in the jurisdiction of Mumbai. Since 1995, when the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations and Municipal Councils, Nagar Panchayats and Industrial Townships (Second Amendment) Act, 1995 came into force, a corporator cannot have more than two children. Gulshan Chouhan, a corporator from South Mumbai, was disqualified in 2011…

At Citizen Matters, we review the promises made in the respective electoral manifestos by all four leading electoral parties, namely, the Shiv Sena (SS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) ahead of the BMC elections in February 2022.  We review whether these promises made by them have been delivered, and where Mumbai currently stands on these issues. To kick start the series, we look at the promises made on the issue of providing clean and safe water supply.   Water requirement in Mumbai  Mumbai currently provides 188 litres per capita per…

Domestic workers are found in all urban and semi-urban households in India, and are yet invisible. Many domestic workers/care workers toil long hours, and are seen hurrying to their places of work as early as 5 am, be it rain, shine or the cold winter! At their workplace - the employer’s home - they face caste discrimination, sexual assault, have no social security, leave, protection or rights like other workers. With the gendered notion of housework, it's considered natural that domestic workers - majority of them women - should slave, and their work, like all housework, is devalued. Thousands of…

BBMP Commissioner Gaurav Gupta, in a press release, said the revised voters' list for all 28 Assembly Constituencies within BBMP limits was published on November 8th. The list has been published at the Voter's Registration Office, office of the Assistant Electoral Officer and in the ward offices. Citizens can review their details and make any corrections if required. This is in the line up to the Special Summary Revision of Electoral Rolls - 2022. The voters' list is also available at the website of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka as well as the BBMP website. You can also find…

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…

Translated by Sandhya Raju from the original Tamil Press Release by GCC Chennai District Election Officer and Chennai Corporation Commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi jointly released the draft electoral poll list for Chennai, in the presence of the party representatives, earlier this week. The electoral list includes eligible voters from the 16 constituencies, as of January 1st, 2022. This list is available at 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13 zonal offices for public view. The public has been requested to check the draft list for addition, modification or deletion. First-time voters whose names have still not been included or who…

On October 16th, close to 50 families residing on the pavements near the Egmore Railway Station were evacuated and shifted to a temporary shelter near Pattalam, by the Chennai Corporation and the city police. The pavement dwellers alleged that they were evicted without any prior notice and that they had been forcefully moved. Several activists in the city had condemned this incident and also questioned the need for such hurried eviction without any prior notice and in the absence of any kind of arrangements made to permanently house the people. The irony is that this incident took place exactly four…

Translated by Sandhya Raju மிகுந்த கலந்துரையாடல்களுக்கு பின், செப்டம்பர் 30-ம் தேதியன்று உலக வங்கியின் நிர்வாக இயக்குநர்கள் குழு, 150 மில்லியன் டாலர் நிதியுதவியை தமிழக அரசுக்கு அளிக்க ஒப்புதல் அளித்தது. சென்னை நகரை உலக தரத்திற்கு உயர்த்துவதற்கான தமிழக அரசின் தொலை நோக்கு திட்டத்திற்கு இந்த நிதி உதவும். "பசுமையான, வாழக்கூடிய, பிற நகரங்களுக்கு போட்டியாக, கால நிலை மாற்றம் மற்றும் பிற சவால்களை எதிர்கொள்ள" சென்னை நகர கூட்டுத்திட்டம் முனையும் என உலக வங்கியின் அதிகாரபூர்வ செய்தி அறிக்கை தெரிவிக்கிறது. இது என்ன திட்டம்? உலக வங்கி ஏன் தமிழக அரசுடன் கூட்டு முயற்சியில் ஈடுபட்டுள்ளது? தமிழக அரசுடன் இணைந்து உலக வங்கி செயல்படுவது இது முதல் முறை அல்ல. நகர்ப்புற வளர்ச்சி, சாலை வசதி மற்றும் போக்குவரத்து, பொது சுகாதாரம், கிராமப்புற வளர்ச்சி என பல்வேறு நலத்திட்டங்களுக்காக உலக வங்கியுடன் மாநில அரசு இணைந்து செயல்பட்டுள்ளது.…