06 June,2026 10:11 AM IST | Mumbai | Rumani Gabhare
Fellows involved in the programme help residents raise civic concerns across the city, from inadequate infrastructure and water shortages to sanitation and public health issues. Pic/Rane Ashish
What makes a neighbourhood liveable? For thousands of Mumbaikars, the answer is not flyovers or skyscrapers, but walkable roads, better public amenities and a stronger sense of belonging.
These are among the early findings of WISE Quotient 2026, a citizen-led survey conducted by Blue Ribbon Movement, a youth-led non-governmental organisation that empowers young people (primarily aged 18 to 35-years) to become active citizens and grassroots leaders through its Community Connect Fellowship.
Fellows participate in exercises where they present themselves as art work and work through challenges. Pics courtesy/Blue Ribbon Movement
More than 3400 residents across 50 neighbourhoods have been interviewed by youth fellows, making it one of the city's largest grassroots surveys on urban liveability. Now in its 14th year, the fellowship combines leadership development with civic engagement and encourages young people to understand urban governance by working directly with communities and local issues.
The programme is as much about developing young leaders as it is about solving civic problems. "One part is how do you build leadership skills in a young person in today's time, and the second is how do you build their urban governance knowledge and understanding," says WISE lead Akash Upase, who completed the fellowship in 2017. "There are fellowships on poverty, child education and many other themes, but civics is what every citizen experiences daily. There isn't a place where one can learn about it, and make themselves aware of it," adds Upase.
An earlier photograph of piled garbage at Jogeshwari West
"If you fix a streetlight through grievance redressal, such acts make streets safer for women at night. By working on waste segregation, it also works on sustainability and other issues that people feel strongly about. Civic issues are a good lever to work on multiple problems that we face in society," explains Upase.
The cleared entrance to a building complex at the location
Since its inception, the fellowship has engaged more than 610 young people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds across Mumbai and the wider MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) many of whom have gone on to work in the social sector.
The fellowship's flagship exercise is the WISE Quotient survey, which measures neighbourhood liveability across four dimensions - Wellbeing, Inclusion, Sustainability, and Entrepreneurship & Expression.
Akash Upase and Pankhuri Jain
"Along with a city being smart, we are trying to see how it can also be WISE, which is more holistic and citizen-first. The idea is that over a period of time we are able to build an index for a city that reflects the WISE score of a locality. We feel that is a more holistic measure than purely economic indicators," says project lead Pankhuri Jain.
The findings reveal a disconnect between what residents value and what they truly experience. Nearly 65 per cent of respondents identified Wellbeing and Sustainability as the most important dimensions of liveability, at 32.8 per cent and 31.6 per cent respectively. Yet both remain among the weakest-performing areas. Along with that, heat liveability emerged as the city's biggest concern, with nearly 69 per cent of respondents saying their localities are not comfortable during summers, making it the lowest-scoring indicator among the other measures.
As Mumbai continues to evolve, the WISE Quotient seeks to place citizens' experiences at the heart of urban development. The full WISE Quotient 2026 report will be launched at the BRM Ecosystem Leadership Lab in August 2026.
Log on to: @blueribbonmovement
