Comments on the BMC’s Draft Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling), Cleanliness and Sanitation Bye-laws, 2025
Submissions to the Solid Waste Management Department, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai
The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (“BMC”) published a draft of the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling), Cleanliness and Sanitation, Bye-laws (“Draft Bye-laws”) in February 2025 and invited comments from the public. Separately, the BMC also organised a consultation on the Draft Bye-laws on 7th May 2025, which was attended by several civil society organisations, experts in solid waste management (“SWM”), private sector agencies engaged in SWM and academics. The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (“Vidhi”) had also attended this consultation. Through this note, Vidhi is submitting written comments to the BMC on the Draft Bye-laws.
Please note that Vidhi’s comments primarily address substantive legal issues and certain significant drafting concerns in the Draft Bye-laws. They are not intended to be an exhaustive review of the Draft Bye-laws. The comments provided by Vidhi are of two types: (A) General Legal and Drafting Comments on the Draft Bye-laws, and (B) Additional aspects that the Draft Bye-laws should provide for.
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About the Authors
Aditya is a Senior Resident Fellow with the Vidhi Maharashtra team. His work focuses on providing research and drafting assistance to various departments of the Government of Maharashtra. Prior to joining Vidhi, he worked for over five years as a legal researcher and capacity-building trainer at the Centre for Social Justice. He has handled a wide range of rights-based cases, at all judicial levels, including crucial landmark judgments. He also has extensive experience researching legal issues emerging from grassroots contexts in Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, particularly in Schedule V regions. His work focused on linking grassroots issues to policy interventions, ensuring policies are informed by ground realities. Additionally, he has written extensively on human-rights issues at the intersection of law, policy, and governance. He earned his law degree from ILS Law College in 2019 and a Master’s in Arts (Public Policy) from the Jindal School of Government and Policy in 2023.
Isha Prakash is a Research Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy’s Maharashtra team. She recently graduated from Government Law College, Mumbai and stood sixth in Mumbai University. As a student, she has worked at the Chambers of now-Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, now-Supreme Court Justice Karol and Justice G.S. Kulkarni as well as with organisations such as the Centre for Communication and Governance (NLU-D), Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, Majlis, etc. With a strong inclination towards constitutional law, gender justice and policy design, she has previously written for the Engenderings Blog by London School of Economics among others. Additionally, she has also served as the Chief Editor for the 90th edition of GLC's annual college magazine, méLAWnge, and as an International Editor for Cambridge Law Review and so on. In her spare time, she is a cinephile and volunteers to teach and work with underprivileged children.
Jinaly is a Senior Resident Fellow and leads Vidhi Maharashtra. Her work focuses on providing research and drafting assistance to several Ministries of the Government of India and departments of the Maharashtra State Government on legal, regulatory and governance matters. Prior to joining Vidhi, Jinaly graduated with a B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) from the Jindal Global Law School in 2015 and worked at the leading Indian law firm S&R Associates. Thereafter, she completed an LL.M from the University of Cambridge in 2019. Beyond her areas of work at Vidhi, Jinaly is interested in history, politics, gender and sexuality. At Jindal Global Law School, she was a research assistant for the Centre for Health Law, Ethics and Technology for three years during which time she assisted on various research projects and a book on gender non-conforming persons in India. Jinaly has also co-authored a book "Hamīñ Ast?: A Biography of Article 370", which is a constitutional history of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.