Asia's Biggest Slum Is a Land of Opportunity

Here in Dharavi slum, children play in open drains, scavenging dogs pick through piles of garbage, and the sun never seems to penetrate the narrow, putrid lanes.

But for the 1 million people who live in this 370-acre sprawl of rusty shacks in Bombay, Dharavi is not a slum but the city of their dreams. Most manage not only to survive, but to thrive.

Dharavi is the only home that Shankar Lingappa has ever known. The teenage boy makes canvas gloves for assembly-line workers at a nearby car plant. Five people sit at sewing machines in an airless room about the size of a pickup truck.

"I like this place. I want to set up my own business soon," says Shankar, whose family migrated to Dharavi because they had no work or land in their home state of Andhra Pradesh.

Asia's largest slum is an unwelcome blot on the landscape of India's commercial capital and investment gateway, Bombay. Civic amenities are almost nonexistent.

Water runs once a day, and there is only one toilet for every 5,700 residents. The slum's only school provides primary-level education. But most parents prefer to make their children work. But for impoverished migrants from all over India, Dharavi is a place where a living can be made, a family can be raised, and the endless cycle of poverty can be broken.

Most people who come here are driven by desperation and the will to succeed. Thousands of sweatshops absorb an endless supply of cheap labor, while the growing consumer markets of India and the West provide an outlet for their wares.

Far from being an impoverished slum, Dharavi has developed into a major manufacturing center for garments, leather products, plastics, and food processing. Every house here has a second story where people sit and work cutting leather, sewing garments, and making other items.

Unemployment is almost nonexistent, and average earnings are around Rupees 100 a day ($3.50), or more than most factory workers elsewhere in India can ever dream of making.

Why people live there

"People in Bombay don't stay in slums because they want to. They have no choice. It's a problem that is particularly acute in Bombay because of the serious shortage of land and accommodations," says Upamanyu Chatterjee, chief officer of the Bombay Slum Improvement Board, describing Bombay's exorbitant real estate prices, which are some of the highest in the world.

"The people who stay in Dharavi, for instance, would in any other Indian city live in lower-middle-class colonies. They are clerks, lawyers, and messenger boys. But it is just that [in Bombay] they cannot pay these absurd rents," he explains.

Average-size dwellings in Dharavi sell for at least $30,000, an amount well beyond the means of most Indians. But still people flock to the slum.

"This is a mini-India," says business owner Deepak Kale. "There are people from every corner of this country. There is no more room here, but still they come."

One of many success stories

Mr. Kale and his brother Narhari run a successful leather business selling to the domestic and international markets. They are proud of their air-conditioned showroom on Dharavi's crowded main road, with its chrome-plated stands and modern spotlighting.

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