Between 3 June and 29 July 2025, young fellows of the Community Connect Fellowship went out into their neighbourhoods, from Dharavi and Ghatkopar to Kandivali, Thane and Kalyan. They asked people to score their locality through four lenses: how Well-Being oriented, how Inclusive, how Sustainable, how Entrepreneurial & Expressive it is. Every dot on this page is one of those answers. This was the first WISE Quotient, and the start of everything that came after it.
Blue Ribbon Movement · Community Connect Fellowship, Batch 15 · June to July 2025
How WISE was Mumbai? 3.11 out of 5.
Four lenses, twelve questions, each scored from 1 (low) to 5 (high). Mumbai’s Inclusive lens came out strongest, only just ahead of Well-Being, carried by how safe and respected people feel and how much they belong. Its Sustainable lens was the weakest. The single lowest answer was about places to learn new skills, with readiness for floods and climate a close second.
Mumbai is its people. That is what holds.
The three strongest answers are all about people: feeling safe and respected whoever you are, feeling that this is your place, and young people and women being able to start something of their own. Asked what they love most, people named their neighbours, friends and family far more than anything else, then the station and market close by, the garden down the road, and the festivals that bring the whole lane together.
“जैसे यह मेरी जगह है”“Like this is my place,” as the belonging question put it in Hindi
आपको अपने इलाके में सबसे ज्यादा क्या पसंद है?
People belong. They do not know where to turn.
Belonging is the strength of this lens. Public spaces sit in the middle (52% rate them high), with parks and grounds that exist but are too few or too far. Mental-health help is where Well-Being breaks down: most people simply do not know where it is.
Mumbai’s Well-Being score in 2025: 3.32 out of 5, from the three questions above.
Respect is strong. The street is not built for everyone.
The trust is there. What lets people down is the physical city: 39% rate their public places and services low for people with disabilities, seniors and children. And voice is only middling: 40% feel young people and citizens can really influence local decisions.
Mumbai’s Inclusive score in 2025: 3.34 out of 5, from the three questions above.
The weakest lens, and the one people care about most.
When asked what matters most to them, 465 of 1,303 chose Sustainability, more than any other lens. Yet waste, water and power systems score low too (45% rate them low). Every monsoon tests the same weak points: open drains, blocked gutters, water coming into homes.
Mumbai’s Sustainable score in 2025: 2.83 out of 5, from the three questions above.
The will to build is here. The places to learn are not.
Young people and women can start or run a small business here, say 60%, one of the three strongest answers. But the places that would help them grow are missing, and so are platforms for art, storytelling and performance (49% rate them low).
Mumbai’s Entrepreneurial & Expression score in 2025: 2.98 out of 5, from the three questions above.
Clear the garbage. Fix the drains.
Two open questions: what civic problems do you notice, and if you had one superpower, what would you improve? Garbage leads both. The civic-issues question listed a few examples on the form (potholes, uncollected garbage, debris, waste disposal, unclean toilets), so read those counts as confirmation rather than discovery. The superpower question had no examples, and garbage still came first, ahead of roads, trees and clean air, and drains.
अगर आपके पास सुपर पावर होती, तो आप अपने इलाके में कौन सी एक चीज़ सुधारना चाहेंगे?
1,303 voices, 20 wards and the wider region.
The fellows asked people in the neighbourhoods they knew, so the answers cluster where the fellows worked. We placed 1,062 answers in a BMC ward, using the ward the person named or the locality they gave, and 126 in the wider Mumbai region. 115 gave a locality we could not place with confidence; their answers still count in every score. The largest groups come from Dharavi in G/North and from Ghatkopar in N ward.
A year later, different people, the same city.
In 2026 the WISE Quotient grew to 17 questions, heard 3,614 voices, and moved to a 1 to 4 scale with a “don’t know” option. So the scores cannot be laid side by side. But all twelve 2025 questions were asked again, and their order can be compared. The top three are the same in both years: safety and respect, belonging, and chances for young people. The bottom five are the same five too: mental-health help, waste and water, arts, places to learn, and readiness for floods. A new set of people, asked a year apart, described the same Mumbai.
The biggest moves: getting around rose from 7th to 4th, and places to learn from 12th to 9th, though it stays in the bottom group. Citizen voice slipped from 5th to 7th. The getting-around and voice questions were reworded in 2026, so read those two moves with care. Read the full 2026 picture in How WISE is Mumbai? The 2026 report.
Build on the people. Fix what they live with.
The first WISE Quotient set the agenda the next one confirmed. Mumbai’s strength is social: safety, respect, belonging and the will to earn. Its gaps are the systems around people. Each lens tells us where to act, and most of it starts in the neighbourhood.
Thank you. To every citizen who answered, and every CCF 15 fellow who went out and asked.
What this is: 1,303 people answered twelve questions about their own locality, between 3 June and 29 July 2025. Each was scored from 1 (low) to 5 (high), and every answer was scored: this form had no “don’t know” option. The overall score is the average of every answer given, and each lens is the average of its three questions. “Rate it high” means a 4 or 5; “rate it low” means a 1 or 2. The answers were collected by the fellows of the Community Connect Fellowship, Batch 15.
What it is not: a representative sample of Mumbai. The answers cluster in the neighbourhoods the fellows covered, 581 of 1,303 are aged 12 to 24 (including 110 aged 12 to 17), and 582 are women. 1,005 have lived in their locality for more than ten years. Three fellows collected 424 of the answers between them; take those out and the overall score is 3.11, against 3.11 with them. 20 people gave the same score to every question; without them the overall is 3.09. The open answers were grouped into themes by their words, and one answer can count toward more than one theme. Quotes are shared without names and credited only to a ward or city with at least 20 answers, to keep every response confidential.
