In its bid to promote gender equality, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is mulling over an idea to introduce female icons on signages meant for pedestrians in the city.
The matter came to light after Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Aditya Thackeray took to Twitter to announce that how the corporation is “ensuring gender equality with a simple idea- the signals now have women too!”
According to ThePrint, the BMC has decided to change traffic signages at about 13 traffic intersections on a 4.5 kilometre stretch between Dadar and Mahim.
According to the report, the initiative is a pet project of the state’s Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray, who also plans to install vertical gardens behind bus stops, better facilities for pedestrians in the city.
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner in charge of Mumbai’s G North administrative ward, told ThePrint that this intervention involved very low expenditure of less than Rs 25,000 crore. “For the signals, all we need to do is change the stencil,” he added.
In implementing this idea, Mumbai has become India’s first city to walk in the footsteps of other countries like Germany, Netherlands Australia and Vienna that have installed gender-sensitive signage.
(With inputs from ThePrint)
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