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Bombay, India
The major industrial and financial centre and the most populous
city in India, Bombay traces its roots to the small settlement of
the East India Company. After it ceded to the British crown in
1661, little growth was witnessed until the development of a
stimulating economic environment in the nineteenth century.
Factors that spurred the growth of Bombay include: the
development of foreign shipping services to exploit its location
on the Arabian Sea; the extension of a railway line to the
cotton-growing areas in the hinterland of Bombay in the 1860's;
and the boost in cotton prices as a result of shortages caused by
the American Civil War. This economic growth resulted in an
increase of population from only 10,000 in 1661 to 644,400 in
1872.
Conditions such as famine in the country side and epidemics in
the city have created an unbalanced demographic profile
throughout the city's history. The 1990 United Nations
population estimate for the urban agglomeration of Bombay was
12.2 million, making it the sixth largest city in the world.
The economy in Bombay is rooted in a mixture of light and
medium engineering industries, as compared with heavy engineering
found in Calcutta. Other manufacturing activities in Bombay
include: oil refining and petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals,
publishing, tobacco, leather, timber, ceramics and jewelry.
Bombay is considered the most congested of any city in India.
The 1981 census estimated that 2.8 million people lived in slums
or near-slums. In spite of several programmes, the slums in
Bombay continue to grow with the rapid increase in population.
Slums have encroached on private and public land and overwhelmed
all attempts at providing services.
The water supply situation in Bombay is critical, with the
level of supply so much below demand that water use is restricted
and reaches emergency proportions when the monsoon fails. Bombay
is also one of the noisiest cities in the world and suffers from
serious air pollution, both from noxious industries and
automobile emissions. Despite a substantial public transport
system, congestion in the metropolitan area continues. More than
2 million Bombay residents have no sanitary facilities, and most
sewage collected in Bombay is discharged untreated or partially
treated into creeks or coastal waters. Attempts have been made to
relocate industries outside the island city, but industrial
pollution remains a serious problem.
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