The reporting and interviews for this story were conducted in 2023.

Today, Pali Hill in Bandra, Mumbai, is a sustainable neighbourhood with abundant greenery, clean roads with flower beds, round-the-clock security, organised door-to-door garbage collection and segregation culminating in an innovative biogas plant producing energy from wet waste.

No doubt a major change from what it was two and a half decades ago, when Illicit liquor brewers were a common sight, as were drug peddlers operating under the guise of paanwalas and cobblers. Residents were also burdened by the stench emanating from garbage bins on the streets, bad roads, rash drivers, and frequent burglaries.

That is when a group of women banded together in 1998 to lead Pali Hill’s transformation.

Resident Sumi Mehta, who initiated the movement, says she was inspired by the happenings around the world. “I used to read about cities all over the world, about garbage segregation and how they keep their areas clean and beautiful. I felt I, too, should do something for the place I live in.”

Eventually, this collective of eight women snowballed into a people’s movement under the banner of Pali Hill Residents’ Association (PHRA), as more women and men joined hands. A managing committee was elected with Sumi Mehta as the chairperson and Dr Amitav Shukla as the secretary. Since then, committees have changed, but the good work has carried on.

It has been no cake walk, say PHRA members, who had to work around the clock, meeting residents, civic officials, police officers and others repeatedly. “To me it was a mission,” says Sumi. “I had an enthusiastic and supportive team of women. We used to spend two hours every day going around meeting residents, civic, police officials, etc.”

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