Rest day Mumbai - Day 2

Mumbai slum tour at Dharavi

Mumbai slum tours offer a glimpse into one of Asia’s largest slums, Dharavi, which is truly unlike any other. Home to over 1 million people, it’s a melting pot of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, cultures, religions, and languages.

Reality Tours and Travel’s ethical and educational slum tours offer a unique glimpse into everyday life in Dharavi while challenging the negative stereotypes often associated with slums. Best of all, 80% of their post-tax profits are invested in their charity, Reality Gives, whose impact we witnessed firsthand during our tour.

Known for its thriving informal economy—pottery, leatherwork, garment production, recycling, and more— Dharavi stands as an economic powerhouse in the heart of Mumbai. Yet, like other informal settlements, Dharavi faces challenges such as poor infrastructure, overcrowding, and limited access to essential services.

No photo taking of people is allowed in Dharavi due to privacy for the residents.

There are two areas in Dharavi, one residential and the other commercial where all the industry takes place. Mostly men live in the commercial area. They migrate from the countryside to work here. There is a lot of toxic industry in the slum, so they leave their family behind at home so as not to expose them to the conditions here.

The machines they use to process everything are also made right here in Dharavi.

Work in Dharavi goes on 10 - 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Dharavi, is one of the biggest slum’s in Asia by population - 175 hectares in area with a million people and 570 thousand people per square kilometer. This is about half the size of Central Park in NYC.

There are 1,800 slums in Mumbai and about 40% of the population lives in the slums.

Dharavi is known for production and industry, generating over a billion dollars in revenue annually.

Leather production: The largest leather production in India is here in Dharavi, and they export their leather products to over 14 countries. They have their own self branded leather products, jackets, backpacks, hand bags, etc. They use hides from water buffalo, sheep, and goat. They clean them and dry them with salt and then send them out someplace to be tanned. Once they are tanned they wash them again, then dye and iron the hides. Big brands like sketcher, nike and puma use these leather products.

Plastic recycling: They recycle more than 60% of the cites plastic waste, over 17 tons per day. Plastic is collected and delivered here from all over the city. They separate the plastic, then grind it up, then wash it and dry it on the rooftops. Once the plastic is dry, they dye it, melt it and make wire from it, cut that wire into pellets, and then sell the pellets, which are used to make over 2000 products, like TV’s, AC’s, Refrigerator’s, smart phone covers, shoes, glasses, etc. There are 14 different kind of plastic codes that are separated here.

Soap recycling is a big industry here. They buy left over bar soaps from hotels, then melt them down and put it into pots to dry, they then cut it into bars and sell it in the slum for people to use for washing their dishes. It’s only used for dishwashing.

Fabric Dying - Fabric is brought here from all over the city for them to dye. They boil water with pigment and use rock salt in it to hold the color.

Pottery production - there are 150 families productions pottery here (Pottery water = kumbhar wada). The clay is sourced from outside the city. They make pots for drinking water, rituals, festivals, restaurants and to sell in the market.

          Oil lamps for Diwali festival                    

Baking

Khari- puff pastry that’s empty and crunchy, drink with tea

Produce 3.5 tons of food everyday that’s delivered through out the city.

Salaries and wages

Recycling 400 to 700 ($4.00 - $8.00) rupees a day

Garment factory- 1000 to 1500 ($11.00 to $17.00) rupees a day for skilled workers 

Rent 6000 ($68.00) rupees a month for people who rent. 

Sewage goes directly to the sea with no filter.

Generally they have only 3 to 4 hours a day with running water, but the electricity is going 24 hours a day.

There are 2 government hospitals and more than 100 private health clinics in the slum area.

There are 4 police stations in the slum. There is less crime in the slum now because the houses are close together and people know everyone. Before 1995, the mafia ruled the slum, the government had a project to clean this up and killed over 300 mafia.