Bombay is the capital of Maharashtra and the country’s financial and commercial centre, with a city population reported as about 12.5 million by the 2011 census and a metropolitan region exceeding 18 million, as reported by official figures.
The city sits on a reclaimed group of seven islands and covers roughly 603.4 square kilometres, according to municipal data, and it hosts major financial institutions including the Bombay Stock Exchange and several corporate headquarters.
Bombay is home to India’s prolific film industry known as Bollywood and, as reported by business outlets cited in the sources, ranks among Asia’s leading cities for billionaire households, while generating an estimated 6.16 percent of national GDP as reported in the compiled material.
Mumbai Infrastructure And Challenges
Transport in the city relies on an extensive suburban rail network called the locals, which carries millions daily, municipal buses run by BEST and growing metro and monorail systems opened in 2014 to ease congestion, as documented in the source material.
The main airport, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, handled 52.8 million passengers in the reported financial year, while a new Navi Mumbai international airport is cited in the sources as a major addition intended to relieve air traffic pressure.
Bombay’s dense population coexists with severe housing shortages, the sources state nearly 42 percent of residents live in slums, and Dharavi is described as a tightly packed area housing between 800,000 and one million people in about 2.39 square kilometres.
Environmental and safety risks are documented in the material. The city recorded average annual PM2.5 of 63 micrograms per cubic metre in 2013, as reported by the World Health Organization database referenced in the sources.
Monsoon flooding is a recurring threat, the 2005 floods caused hundreds of deaths and an estimated economic loss of about US$1.2 billion, according to World Bank material cited in the primary source set.
Local governance falls to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, identified in the sources as one of India’s wealthiest civic bodies, and the city also hosts the Bombay High Court and municipal agencies responsible for water, waste and urban planning.
