When Dharavi is fixed up, "more buyers will come to my workshop, " he said.
Many families have been here for generations, and some of the younger Dharavi residents even work in white-collar jobs.
Abdul Hassan, who was born in Dharavi, runs a plating workshop with his brother and 12 workers.
The Economist captured this atmosphere of activity and hope in a December 2007 article about Dharavi, a Mumbai slum.
Supporters of Dharavi's self-organized and ramshackle system come in surprising shapes and sizes.
But, for Dharavi's detractors, the shantytown is an eyesore on an aspiring city.
At present, Dharavi has a large number of thriving small-scale industries that produce embroidered garments, export quality leather goods, pottery and plastic.
They also shot in the Dharavi -- Asia's largest slum -- and Juhu slum which can be seen from the city's airport.
However, some local residents and charities argue that Dharavi's redevelopment will harm the community and shortchange the thousands of small businesses that operate there.
Abdul has bought a flat just outside Dharavi and is paying for his two children's education, in the hope that they will become doctors or engineers.
On tours of Dharavi, a massive slum in Mumbai, guests are promised a revealing look at the daily lives of an estimated 1 million slum dwellers.
According to proposals drawn up by U.S.-trained architect Mukesh Mehta, the redeveloped Dharavi will have gardens, clinics, schools, shops and space for residents to run small businesses.
Reality Tours and Travel in Mumbai set up its own charitable organization, which runs a community centre, kindergarten and cricket program in the slum of Dharavi, founder Chris Way said.
Spread across nearly two square kilometers in the heart of Mumbai, India's economic capital, Dharavi is home to between 500, 000 and 1 million of the city's poorest inhabitants.
Power in Dharavi, a giant Mumbai slum, is now largely tolled, with meters nestling next to curing factories piled with goat skins and people melting down used plastic cutlery.
And the water that flushes sewers is literally beyond them (in Dharavi it is actually below them: a sewer lies under the slum, but no one can afford a connection).
Dharavi is on a prime location adjacent to a big nature park and a mile or so from the city's new Bandra-Kurla business district, as well as being near the airport.
Those slum-dwellers who buy their water by the litre, whether they live in Kibera, Dharavi or a Brazilian favela, will pay more for it than their neighbours in richer districts who get it from a tap.
应用推荐