India’s megacities are some of the fastest growing in the world. Mumbai’s population has more than doubled since 1991, with around 22 million people now living in the metropolitan area. New migrants are moving from rural areas into cities such as Mumbai and Delhi every day in search of employment, housing, and better healthcare and education. Many of these new arrivals live in poorly built houses on the outskirts of the city, unable to afford anything else. These informal settlements are often densely populated areas with little or no sanitation and limited waste-disposal systems.
Unregulated burning of fossil fuels such as coal and kerosene for cooking, and the need to travel long distances in and around the city to find work, add to the smog, noise and harmful chemicals in the air. This creates a very polluted and dirty environment in which people have to live. Over the past 5 years, the number of vehicles in Mumbai has increased from 2 million to 3 million, but the road length (around 2,000 km) has remained the same, meaning that traffic volumes have grown significantly from 900 vehicles per kilometre to 1,500 vehicles per kilometre.
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