16 months without elected representatives in Mumbai: Do you miss them?

Updated On: 17 July, 2023 07:07 AM IST | Mumbai | Team mid-day

Class divide obvious as mid-day’s reportage on absence of BMC corporators reveals high-rises, posh societies have means like clout and social media to get work done; it is the poorer strata that suffers

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Rotting vegetables on Tulsi Pipe Road in Dadar on June 29. Residents used to rely on corporators to resolve solid waste management woes in slum areas. Pic/Ashish Raje

Mumbai has been governed in the absence of corporators for over a year now, but does the average Mumbaikar miss them at all? Are civic councillors really the crucial link between the administration and the people and do citizens need them in the era of social media and helplines? In the first of a multi-part series, mid-day spoke to various stakeholders—including activists, former babus and even ex-corporators—to find the answers to these questions.

The term of the 227 corporators elected in 2022 ended at midnight on March 7. Statutory civic committees have ceased to be. The city is currently being run by an administrator, the municipal commissioner, for the second time in the history of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and for the first time in 40 years since the 1980s when the municipal polls had been delayed.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters on June 30. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi