Dharavi

Today, I had the opportunity to accompany 10 World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders on a Dharavi slum visit. With over 80,000 household units, Dharavi used to be one of the largest slums in Mumbai.  But now, there are other informal settlements with over 100,000 household units. In fact, 60% of Mumbai's population of 18 million people lives in slums! 

Contrary to the image of a somber place of despair and laziness, what we found were units pulsating with energy and entrepreneurial activity. This is entrepreneurship out of necessity, but is no less ingenious in its resourcefulness. People here often work more than 10 hours a day in textile production, recycling, food business, and leather making. In terms of recycling, plastics, cardboard paper, metal scraps, and everything else under the sun are all efficiently collected and sorted, reflective of a larger organized business system at work. As in many parts of the world, shops are run on the ground floor of the unit, and families live upstairs. In meandering through the maze of settlements, we passed by children playing cricket, neighbours engaged in bartering goods, and vegetable sellers calling out to customers. The vibrancy of the community is palpable. 

The Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) and the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF), who hosted our visit, work to aggregate the voices of people in these communities across India. Though citizenship rights are often denied to them, slum dwellers want to take an active part in the development of their cities in a positive way. The future of India will rest on how well we integrate the social progress and economic productivity of both the formal and informal sectors so that it's truly inclusive growth.   

Vivian Gee

 

Editor's note
Vivian Gee, Head, Asia
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship