Civic body to carry out survey of roads as part of ‘Pedestrian First’

Civic officials said during the survey, major and minor roads that have a minimum width of 9 metres will be identified, following which a list of these roads based on their municipal zones will be created. After that, the civic body will take up construction of footpaths alongside each of these roads. Besides creating new footpaths, the BMC will also join missing links of the footpaths that have been broken due to non-maintenance.

The new footpaths will be created by using a Cement and Concrete (CC) technique instead of using conventional paver-blocks, which the BMC had been using for constructing footpaths for several years.

Between 2020 and 2022, BMC had constructed CC footpaths in some heritage precincts in south Mumbai, and in pockets of eastern and western suburbs, as a pilot project

“The main advantage of CC footpaths is that they have a lifespan of 30 years and require minimum maintenance compared to paver blocks, which get detached from the road surface after a year. These new footpaths will be more even, and will be convenient for both pedestrians and the differently-abled,” said P Velrasu, additional municipal commissioner (projects).

This year, for the first time since 1985, the BMC budget was presented by a state-appointed administrator and municipal commissioner, Iqbal Singh Chahal. Ahead of the budget, Chahal had invited suggestions and objections from citizens.

During his budget speech on February 4, Chahal had said he incorporated the ‘Pedestrian First’ policy after several citizens demanded a uniform policy for even footpaths in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, the BMC still doesn’t have a concrete policy to prevent hawkers and vendors encroaching on the street-side. Chahal said the BMC is working towards setting up a ‘vendor committee’, which will form a concrete policy for hawkers by the end of the year.

“After the hawker’s policy comes into action, we will allot hawking pitches and designated zones to hawkers to prevent them from encroaching on the roadside,” Chahal had said.