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The City of Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) was created on 9 December 1898, in response to the Bombay plague epidemic of 1896.[1] The plague's threat to Bombay's economy caused the Bombay Chamber of Commerce to approach Governor Lord Sandhurst to ensure “the destruction of insanitary [sic] property and the thorough cleansing of the city and suburbs" after the 1897 International Sanitary Conference in Venice threatened to quarantine ships from Bombay.[2][3][4]
The BIT was modeled on contemporary English and Scottish town-planning institutions and "possessed the authority not only to build housing, but also to demolish slums and widen roads, and improve sanitation, particularly in the “problematic” working-class neighborhoods."[3]