Prime Minister’s recent address urging citizens to embrace electric vehicles as part of a larger push for energy conservation and cleaner mobility landed with quiet urgency in homes across the country. From reducing fuel consumption to integrating EVs wherever feasible, even in official convoys, the message was clear: sustainable transport is no longer a distant ideal but a practical necessity for India’s future. Yet for hundreds of thousands of Mumbaikars living in the city’s pagdi buildings, this vision collides with a legal and structural reality that feels frozen in another era.
These are not abstract policy gaps. They are daily lived experiences in the very neighbourhoods that once anchored working-class stability in Mumbai. In my earlier article for the Free Press Journal, I examined how the pagdi system, which originated as a colonial-era arrangement built on trust and later served as a shield against displacement, has in many ways outlived parts of its original purpose. That leaves us with a practical question today: how do we ensure it does not now stand in the way of the adaptations ordinary residents need to keep pace with modern realities?
The Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999, still governs these tenancies with the same protective intent that once made sense in a city of acute shortages. Under Section 16, tenants cannot erect “permanent structures” without the landlord’s written consent. Installing a home EV charger, which typically involves wall-mounted equipment, dedicated high-amperage cabling, circuit upgrades, and sometimes structural anchoring, falls squarely into that category. It is not a minor repair or a “tenantable” improvement like patching plaster or fixing a leaking tap. In the eyes of the law, it is an alteration to the landlord’s property.
Most pagdi buildings are decades old, with sanctioned electrical loads calibrated for ceiling fans and tube lights. Shared distribution boards, ageing wiring, and common-area parking, often on landlord-controlled land, mean that even a willing tenant cannot act alone. Electricity discoms require documentation tied to the building connection, often in the landlord’s name. BMC permissions for electrical modifications in cessed or structurally sensitive structures add another layer. The result? Residents who have bought EVs find themselves unable to charge them conveniently at home.
This is the quiet friction of rules written for a different Mumbai, which unfortunately do not meet the lived realities of today’s one. Families in these buildings want the same shot at sustainable living that residents of modern housing societies take for granted. Yet unlike those societies, pagdi tenants cannot form a cooperative housing society or residents’ welfare association with any real decision-making authority over common areas and infrastructure upgrades. The underlying land rights remain vested entirely with the landlord, and there is no alternative legal framework that allows tenants to come together for collective approvals or shared modernisation. Court rulings and central guidelines have made EV charger installation almost routine in cooperative societies, with NOCs expected within days. Pagdi tenants, however, remain outside that framework not because they lack the will, but because the tenancy structure itself has not evolved alongside changing needs.
Other places grappling with strong tenancy protections, where tenants enjoy near-permanent occupancy rights and landlords retain ownership, have shown that targeted updates can bridge this gap without dismantling the system’s core safeguards. In Germany, whose tenancy laws are among the world’s most tenant-protective, with strict rent controls, near-impossible evictions for long-term residents, and safeguards against displacement that echo the pagdi system’s original intent, lawmakers amended the Civil Code in 2020. Under this framework, tenants now have an explicit legal right to install EV charging infrastructure. Landlords must tolerate the structural changes unless there are compelling reasons, such as disproportionate costs or heritage protections, and the tenant bears all expenses while ensuring full safety and compliance. This reform has enabled renters in older apartment blocks to move forward on sustainable upgrades without upending the landlord-tenant balance.
The good news is that the conversation around reform is already moving. The state government’s recent steps towards a new regulatory framework for pagdi redevelopment, with clearer incentives and tenant protections, show an understanding that long-term stasis is no longer sustainable. That same forward-looking spirit can, and should, extend to enabling day-to-day liveability improvements.
Reform need not be disruptive or one-sided. A thoughtful update to the Rent Control Act could recognise sustainable infrastructure such as EV charging points as permissible “tenantable improvements”. Landlords could be offered streamlined approvals or modest incentives for facilitating building-wide upgrades, while tenants bear the cost and ensure compliance. Linking such provisions to the ongoing redevelopment conversation would help modernise without undermining land rights.
Mumbai has always been a city of adaptation. The pagdi system once provided stability to generations; the challenge now is to let it evolve so that the same families can fully participate in the shift towards cleaner, greener living. When a national call for electric mobility meets the ground realities of our oldest neighbourhoods, the response should not be to ask residents to wait. It should be to update the rules so that aspiration and infrastructure can finally align.
The lived reality is straightforward: people want to do the right thing for the environment and their daily lives. Outdated provisions should not become the barrier that holds them back. A pragmatic, balanced reform, one that respects the system’s protective roots while addressing today’s needs, feels not just desirable, but increasingly necessary in 2026.
Ankieta Kothari is the founder of The Bombay Blueprint, a public platform chronicling Mumbai’s architecture, heritage, and evolving urban landscape.
