Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s plan to make the city’s footpaths aesthetically appealing might not be a reality anytime soon, as beautification work is currently limited only to replacing paver blocks with concrete cement layers, keeping the backside of bus stops transparent and replacing benches with more aesthetic ones. As per the original plan, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was looking at making the footpaths visually uniform in terms of signboard sizes and height of trees, but due to lack of cooperation from commercial establishments, work on the project is currently limited only to ground improvement and beautification.

In the next 15 months

During his first meeting with BMC officials on December 27, 2019, Thackeray had asked them to work on beautification of footpaths. He wanted to create a ‘Mumbai Model’, which could be replicated throughout the state. He had also discussed having two different policies for heritage and non-heritage areas. However, currently work on the footpath beautification project, worth Rs 69 crore, is only limited to ground improvement. The work is likely to be completed in the next 15 months.