Overview
- South Mumbai’s B and C remain the city’s smallest administrative wards, dense with wholesale and jewellery markets, narrow lanes and old buildings that draw one of the highest floating populations.
- Residents cite entrenched encroachments, unauthorised construction, infrequent garbage collection, weak water pressure and too few public toilets, alongside fears of collapses in cessed and pagadi buildings.
- With corporator posts vacant for nearly four years, complaints are routed to MLAs; Congress MLA Amin Patel raised water shortages in the Assembly, pointed to a planned MMRDA tunnel to ease traffic, and says he has submitted a parking-plaza proposal to the BMC.
- SBUT’s Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment has already housed about 800 families, with more than 1,000 additional flat handovers expected after January 2026.
- Political jockeying is intensifying: C ward’s 2017 electoral tie was decided by lottery, BJP’s Atul Shah proposes night-only loading and pedestrian-only lanes to cut congestion, and residents in other wards say little has improved since the last polls.