Visit the famous Dharavi Slum – Biggest Mumbai Slum – India
I visited the famous Dharavi slum during my first time in Mumbai. When I first went to India, in 2009, I had seen the film Slumdog Millionaire which is set in the Dharavi slum. And now I was then going to experience for myself what it is like to walk around Dharavi.
Visit the famous Dharavi Slum
Biggest Mumbai Slum – India
How big is Dharavi?
The Dharavi section of Mumbai is incredibly large, encompassing as many as parts of four districts. Namely pieces of the Sion, Bandra, Kurla and Kalina districts. The area covers as much as 2.4 square kilometres.
How many people live in Dharavi?
For a long time, Dharavi was the largest slum in the world. It is home to 600,000 to 1 million people. This is, of course, an estimate. There are so many houses and places where people live and stay…. This can never be counted.When I was in Mumbai, I obviously had to visit this biggest slum Dharavi, which I knew from Slumdog Millionaire, and feel for myself what it is like to walk around there.
What is Dharavi known for?
Dharavi district is also known for having a good small-scale industry. This industry consists largely of recycling, leather production, pottery and textiles. Because so much is recycled in Dharavi and it has a so-called recycling zone, you can call Dharavi another very sustainable district.
Progressively sustainable Dharavi
Because everything is really recycled in Dharavi, it has been said that Dharavi could be India’s way to a sustainable future. In fact, in Dharavi, 80% of all plastic is recycled. To make a comparison, the figures for the Netherlands were 46% and that’s a bit of a shame then, isn’t it?
Do you have an address in Dharavi?
At some point they said that what lives there now has and will get an address, on paper. After that, of course, there was plenty of additional construction, but these houses have no address…and officially have no electricity. Everything is of course arranged among themselves and so the only thing missing then is an address.
Walk in Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi
At a certain point the gouvernment wanted control back in the Mumbai slum. They stated that everybody that had a house at that point got an adress. After that nobody could build a house for itself without persmission. You can imagine what happened, they still build houses ofcourse…but they don’t get an adress on paper.. And officially they don’t have electricity and other facilities. They arrange everything for eachother so this doesn’t stop the growth of this biggest Mumbai slum.
For this reason, they did not want photos to be taken. This is an agreement that was made to still have a nice and safe tour that way. Many companies are of course afraid that they will still be seen on the internet and the government/municipality will come by or demand that they work differently and, of course, demand taxes.
A Walk in the Biggest Slum of Asia: Dharavi Slum
On an annual bases Dharavi slum makes around 665 milion dollar. This Mumbai slum is an active and healthy one if you look at that number.. There is a lot of activity and there are thousands of small businesses in the small and narrow streets. But many of these businesses are illegal. The way they do their work is not of this time and age anymore. There are no rules it seems.. the biggest part of the work is done in a very unhealthy way.
This is one of the reasons that they don’t want you to make any pictures during this walk in Dharavi Slum. Reality Tours agreed to this with the locals and so they agree with the walk near and sometimes through their shops or factories. The factory owners are scared that the gouvernment sees what is going on at some places and will close it…or ask for taxes ..
Dharavi Slum exports goods around the world
Hardworking man in Dharavi slum
Even though the industry is so huge and the turnover is so great there is still a lot of poverty. When you consider that there are only about 700 shared toilets for all those people. These are cleaned by the municipality….but they don’t always come.
The water supply is also a problem.
They may have unlimited access to the water… but that is twice a day. The pipe is shut off the other periods of the day because otherwise too much mud and the like would build up. This is because they are all public taps and people don’t always turn the tap back on neatly.
Visit the famous Dharavi Slum, Mumbai – India
Dharavi Slum has severe Public Health problems
When I asked about fire safety, the response was that there are few if any fires. Those fires that are there are quickly put out because people are always at home and so there is good neighbourhood control in the slum. I couldn’t believe that anyway, so of course I did a quick search on the internet.
Search on the internet gives me other information (2024) unfortunately.
The part of the Dharavi slum where we had walked the first part was a Muslim neighbourhood, in addition there is also a whole section of the neighbourhood that is Hindu. There it is much neater and much better organised. There they do have a toilet in the house, there is running water. Why is this you ask? These are families with two earners. People here also work hard just like in the other part of the slum, only here the women are also allowed to work.
What was striking is that they do work for the Muslim factories in the other part of the Dharavi slum, but since women are not allowed to work there, they have to work at home. Of course, this is only convenient because they can then look after the children when they come home from school. This part of the slum was really clean, cheerfully coloured and looked really good.
Dharavi slum is working on a Good Future
I felt safe while walking around Dharavi slum. I interacted with many Dharavi residents and exchanged glances and smiles. With an employee from a small workshop, I took a photo. Not because I took the picture…I followed the rules nicely..but because he liked to take a picture with his phone. How I would love to come across those somewhere on the internet 🙂
Searching on #Dharavi #DharaviSlum on IG will show you all kinds of images!
After the Tour, we briefly visited the school they put the pennies earned into. They have a school for children but also for adults. Very good work they do. They teach job application or computer lessons, so the skills adults actually need to get on.
Good to see such progress!
Is it safe to visit Dharavi Slum?
If you walk with a local guide, it is perfectly safe to visit Dharavi slum. However, I would not recommend going in alone. The ‘streets’ are not easy to follow and I think it is easy to get lost in the maze of small alleys.
Remember that here you are in Mumbai’s poorest district and you are the rich tourist. Everything you have with you is something they may never own. It is therefore a risk to go for a walk alone. You don’t know which streets/ alleys are safe to enter and which are not.
I recommend booking a guided tour to see the places worth visiting and hear about life in slum Dharavi.
Information and Pictures of the Dharavi Slum
I really felt welcome in Dharavi slum. I can recommend taking this tour and especially with Reality Tours. I booked this online and got an answer within hours. I had the tour the day after!
The Dharavi Slum Tour has rule that you can not make any pictures while you’re with them in the slum. But they do provide you some great pictures! Some of them were used in this post.
Do you also want to book the slum tour Dharavi?
Looking for a soft landing in India? When you first arrive in a country, India in particular, can be quite overwhelming. Then pick a nice hotel, e.g. The Leela
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First you want to see more of Mumbai?
Check my Travel Guide Mumbai!
Jacomijn is een politieagent uit Nederland die jou graag laat zien hoe je veilig, actief en gezond de wereld kan over reizen. Safe and Healthy travel is a MUST
