In May 2025, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) released the Draft Solid Waste Management (SWM) Bye-Laws 2025, the first major update since 2006. The draft sought to introduce stricter requirements for waste segregation at source, levy user fees, and impose penalties to improve accountability in urban waste management.

Recognising the need for citizen participation, BMC partnered with Civis to conduct a city-wide consultation. The exercise combined multiple channels: the Civis platform (in English, Hindi, and Marathi), a WhatsApp chatbot, expert and citizen townhalls, and on-ground interviews in bastis. This multi-layered approach generated 2,921 responses, capturing perspectives from residents, business owners, informal workers, and domain experts.

The following recommendations were analysed from citizen inputs:

• Strengthen infrastructure for segregation, including public bins and collection logistics.
• Incentivise compliance alongside penalties to make adoption easier.
• Recognise and formalise the role of informal waste workers.
• Improve alignment with state and national waste management rules.
• Introduce stronger grievance redressal mechanisms.

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