Little known facts about Dharavi

Dharavi in Mumbai is the Asia's biggest slum. The living conditions in Dharavi are poor, to put it mildly (avg size of a house is 300 sq ft and it's not uncommon to see 10-15 people staying in one house). There is no sanitation to talk about (1 toilet per 15,000 people). These are the usually known facts about Dharavi and these are real fact. Now here's something that you may not know.

• Dharavi has an annual economy of over USD 650 million
• It has a population of around 600,000 people
• 60% of the families have lived there since 60yrs
• Many businesses in Dharavi generate million dollar incomes
• Products made in Dharavi are sourced and sold globally (NY, Europe, SE Asia etc)
• Dharavi is a major tourism and cine location in Mumbai and a big chunk of junior film artists come from Dharavi

I thought these facts were interesting; we have certain single stories of people and places etched in our minds because of the information that we are constantly fed with. But thankfully in some cases reality is not all that is told or shown in the single story.

Image Courtesy: National Geographic