Going the extra milestone: Mumbai preserves remnants of colonial past

Over the decades many of the city's stone markers have been submerged in concrete, but a plan is underway to restore them

Buried for years under Mumbai's new roads and ever-increasing layers of development, the British passion for cartography is set to rise up on the city's streets again thanks to a project to preserve its colonial milestones.

When workers from Mumbai municipal corporation (BMC) were demolishing unauthorised buildings three years ago, they unearthed a basalt stone marker with a pyramidal top and a Roman numeral on it - a British milestone and one of 16 laid out in the early 19th century on the road between Horniman Circle and Sion, then the city's outer limit.