One private enterprise makes the metal cages inside suitcases, making 700 pieces per day, paid 3 rupees per piece.  There are 15,000 one room factories in Dharavi which there are 300 feeding most of Mumbai.  Many of the products from Dharavi end up around the world based upon very cheap labour.  Many of the people work in very poor working conditions, and includes children.  Indeed, Dharavi is trying to do in 20 years what the west did in 200, develop.

Managing and improving Squatter settlements

Large scale redevlopment

A $2billion development project threatens the recycling district and part of Dharavi.  The land upon which Dharavi is built is next to Mumbai’s financial district.  This makes it a prime target for redevelopment.  The people who are relocated will be put into smaller housing in apartment blocks.  An ancient fishing village is also threatened.  These areas have strong safe neighbourhoods that have low crime and communal areas.   Also at risk are the local shops and markets and the community spirit which has taken generations to develop.  The locals would prefer small improvements to the existing slum such as improvements in drainage.  The value of land is so high that redevelopment is now a real threat.  The alternative accommodation is very small. 

The slum dwellers face 14 story apartments as accommodation as proposed by the cities Slum  Rehabilitation Authority.  This will separate communities and make people work away from where they live.  Only people who have lived in the slum since 2000 will be relocated.  Current redevelopment projects are densely populated and house lots of people.  They are not good for community cohesion. 

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Local Based Improvements

There is an alternative to large scale redevelopment and that is to allow LOCAL people design the improvements to the slum.

The Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres, better known as SPARC, this is an NGO that supports the efforts of local people to get better housing for their many members. Ideas generated from local people supported by this charity include adding an extra floor to buildings so that all family members can be accommodated in the same building. These flats also had 14-foot high ceilings and a single tall window so are well ventilated, bright, and less dependent on electric fans for cooling. Their loft spaces add extra room without seeming crowded, and include small spaces for bathing. But toilets are placed at the end of each of the building’s four floors, and kept clean by the two or three families who use each one. These ideas only work when water is running in Dharavi.

Architecture students have also been hard at work.  One student has created a multi-storey building with wide outer corridors connected by ramps “space ways in the sky,” to replicate the street. These space ways allow various activities to be linked, such as garment workshops, while maintaining a secluded living space on another. Communal open space on various levels allows women to preserve an afternoon tradition, getting together to do embroidering.

One student also tried to help the potters of Dharavi.  He designed into existing houses the living space at one end and a place to make the pots at the other.  Each has an additional open terrace on which to make pots, which are fired in a community kiln.

As the National Slum Dwellers Federation has repeatedly proven, housing the poor works best, costs less and is better for the environment, when the poor themselves have a say in what is being built.

Dharavi could also follow the Brazilian model, as evidenced in Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro. Within the Favelas the government has assisted people in improving their homes.  Breeze blocks and other materials (pipes for plumbing etc) were given as long as people updated their homes. 

The Brazilian government also moved a lot of people out of shanty towns and into low cost, basic housing estates with plumbing, electricity and transport links.  The waiting list for these properties was huge.

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