The news that made me smile
On 29 October 2026, BMC's G/North ward switched on Mumbai's first AI-powered CCTV camera against littering, at Gajanan Vatika on Dr Raykar Marg, Mahim — one of the city's notorious Garbage Vulnerable Points (GVPs).
How does it work ?
- The camera tracks a person walking up to the spot with a bag of garbage
- Before the bag hits the ground, a loudspeaker politely asks him not to litter and to keep the area clean
- The camera also captures the violator's face, so that repeat offenders can be fined Rs 500 under BMC's new Solid Waste Management bylaws of 2026
- BMC plans to extend these cameras to all 283 GVPs, with a special fund of Rs 30 lakh per ward
- CCTV cameras are already watching 134 GVPs, and 102 chronic dumping spots have been eliminated
And all this came after the Bombay High Court, in September, warned ward officers of action for letting Mumbai become a city full of filth.
Sources : Free Press Journal (30 Oct 2026), Hindustan Times (30 Oct 2026), BMC post on X (29 Oct 2026)
What I wrote 11 years ago
In December 2015, the then Municipal Commissioner, Shri Ajoy Mehta, had asked his officers to prepare a "3-month action plan" to clear commercial encroachments from footpaths — and to keep photographs and video recordings as evidence that they did not come back.
I had asked a few uncomfortable questions :
- How many months does it take to prepare a 3-month action plan ?
- How often will ward staff take those photos ? Once a month ?
- Can't they submit the same photo of a cleared footpath, again and again ?
And then I had suggested :
- Install 50,000 CCTV cameras to monitor Mumbai's footpaths 24 hours a day (London then had 5 lakh cameras !)
- Money is no problem — MCGM had spent only 22% of its Rs 33,000 crore budget that year, and was sitting on Rs 45,000 crore of fixed deposits
- Embed software in the CCTV network that automatically computes the monthly salary of each ward officer, as :
Salary Payable / Payroll Salary = Clear Kilometre-Hours ÷ Total Kilometre-Hours
In short : let the camera — not the clerk — be the witness.
Then vs Now
Aspect | My 2015 suggestion | BMC in October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
Who watches ? | Network of CCTV cameras, 24 x 7 | AI camera at GVPs, 24 x 7 |
Evidence | Automatic, not ward-staff photos | Automatic video + face capture |
Coverage | Every footpath (~50,000 cameras) | 1 camera now; 283 GVPs planned; video analytics on 500 existing + 650 new cameras (Budget 2026-27) |
Problem targeted | Footpath encroachment | Littering, illegal dumping — and (per Budget) encroachments and footpath obstructions too |
Funds | "No problem" | Rs 30 lakh per ward |
Accountability of the citizen | — | Warning first, Rs 500 fine for repeat offenders |
Accountability of the officer | Salary linked to "clear km-hours" | Still missing |
2 Down — but what is the "1 To Go" ?
The technology is here (Down : 1). The money is here (Down : 2).
What is still to go, is the accountability of the ward officer.
A camera that only scolds the citizen, but never reports on the officer, is doing half the job. The High Court did not warn the people who drop the garbage — it warned the officers who let it stay there.
My suggestions to Commissioner Ashwini Bhide
- A "Clean-Hours Index" for every ward — Let the same AI software compute, for each GVP and each footpath stretch : hours found clean ÷ total hours. Roll it up into a ward score, updated daily
- Publish it on a public dashboard — ward-wise, GVP-wise, on the MyBMC app. Let citizens see which ward is winning and which is sleeping
- Link it to performance appraisal of ward officers and SWM contractors — exactly the formula I suggested in 2015. What gets measured gets managed; what gets paid for gets done
- Extend the analytics to footpath encroachments — the Budget 2026-27 already lists encroachments and footpath obstructions as targets. A hawker's stall is as detectable as a garbage bag
- Speak in the citizen's language — announcements in Marathi, Hindi, English and Gujarati, chosen by locality
- Respect privacy while enforcing — face capture of citizens must follow the DPDP Act : visible signage at every camera, a short retention period for footage of non-offenders, and an appeal route before any fine. Enforcement that is trusted will be enforcement that works
- Scale fast — the cost is tiny — at Rs 30 lakh per ward, covering all wards costs roughly Rs 8 crore. For a corporation with a budget of over Rs 70,000 crore, that is small change
Closing thought
In 2015, I wrote that if we let technology monitor our footpaths, we could "expect a miracle of E-Governance".
Mahim's talking camera is the first small miracle.
Now — 1 camera up, 282 to go. And 1 more thing to go : making the camera report on the officer, not just on the litterbug.
With regards,
Hemen Parekh
www.HemenParekh.ai / www.IndiaAGI.ai / www.YourContentCreator.in
30 October 2026
Related reading : 2 DOWN : 1 TO GO ! (11 Dec 2015)
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