Let’s read about Dharavi, a slum area that is located in the heart of our financial capital, Mumbai, India, which is one of the biggest slum areas in the world.
The good news about this area is that this slum area will be rebuilt; after some years, it will be transformed into a modern city. This is a unique story; what is going to happen here has never happened before. Yes, complete reconstruction of Dharavi.
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Life in Dharavi.
But before we can see the new face of Dharavi, first you need to understand and know what Dharavi is, and you should know every kind of people who spent their generation for more than 3 decades, and on top of that, you will get all kinds of businesses, and all kinds of faces living here.
We can call it mini-India in one roop. Everyone is good, everyone is enterprising, and everyone works hard. However, there is no proper infrastructure. There is no sanitation, no water, and no hospitals for 10 lakh people.
The condition of the health clinic is even worse. Electric wires pass overhead, and people are forced to use public toilets even though the stench deters them from going near them.
80% of the people living here do not have a private toilet. This harsh reality has persisted for more than a century, highlighting the challenges faced by those living here.
The Birth of Slum.
In the last century, many people used to go to the big city in search of better jobs, especially Mumbai, because it is still called the city of dreams, and they would need a cheap and quick place to live. So they would come to Dharavi and build houses and live next to each other.
Without any central planning, people would use whatever material they could find to build houses. Everything is so small that it is difficult to even move around. All the houses are small and simple.
Yes, and there are many people living in this small house. About 10 or more than 10 people live in some of these houses, and if you see the kitchens and their rooms, you will be moved to tears. They live in very pathetic conditions.
Gradually more houses were built, and it became a slum area. They live so close to each other that there is no sunlight. But what you see here is going to change soon.
Rebuilding Dharavi.
India is investing $62 million to rebuild this settlement. Yes. Rebuilding an entire settlement.
As you can see, this area needs a lot of space, as there is no central planning. So what if we could plan this slum area a little better? This is an upgrade; this is not an evacuation.
The idea is simple. What if instead of small houses without toilet, kitchens, or water, we build proper apartment complexes for many people to live in.
Instead of children running on the streets, we build new schools and playgrounds. Instead of dirty rivers, we build drainage systems suitable for a million people. The project has already started.
The Future of Dharavi
For the first time, every slum house is being counted; each one is being numbered to ensure that no one is overlooked. India and the Adani Group have embarked on changing the face of Dharavi over the next seven years.
It was a dream of the last 3 generations, and now it is becoming a reality—a better version of Dharavi for the people of Dharavi.
Some young generation of Dharavi says, I live in Dharavi, and I want to work in the sky. I live in Dharavi. I don’t have a private toilet, but I still want to work as a Software Engineer and make an A.I. model.
The best part is that all the residents living in this slum area will get new, bigger apartments for free. Although these slums have existed for a century, it is not necessary that they will exist for the next 100 years also.
We can build new cities. We can make them safe. We can make them liveable. We can change the lives of 1 lakh people; Dharavi will change completely in the next 7 years, and I think it will be very different.
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