The Hindu Business Line : Slump dogs Dharavi

Asia’s largest slum and its enterprising dwellers, who reportedly churn out Rs 4,000 cr business each year, grapple with recession and redevelopment..

As dealers and showrooms, which outsource contracts to these job-workers, cut back, there is little work to be had.

Paul Noronha

Shantytown economy: Working out of cramped, dingy and overcrowded spaces, Dharavi’s workers are not new to market vagaries and other challenges.

P.T. Jyothi Datta

The only light in this small and soot-filled room comes from the glow of smouldering brass-buckles and a fire in the corner. Covered in black dust, two men work on these buckles which will go forth from this “cottage industry” in Dharavi to embellish a bag, belt or garment elsewhere in the city, or even the world, for that matter.

They are sold according to weight, Rs 70 a kg, says one of the men, a migrant from Karnataka, stopping briefly to have his half-glass of “cutting chai”, which he graciously offers us first.

As his co-workers deftly heat more buckles in the mould and sift them through sand, he speaks nothing of the gruelling work, the soot they inhale or the heat they handle with bare hands. His concern, like several other workers in the thousands of room-sized units in Dharavi, is on a different count. There is less work coming their way, as the business slowdown, security concerns, and development in States like Gujarat combine to increase the burden on these workers in what is claimed to be Asia’s largest slum.

The buckle maker earns Rs 120 a day, when there is work. But as dealers and showrooms, which outsource contracts to these job-workers, cut back, there is little work to be had. The Mumbai terror attacks last November have also resulted in less people coming to Dharavi with work. But that does not mean the workers will go back to their villages, he adds, as some of them moved to Mumbai with their families years ago.

Inherent endurance

Workers in Dharavi are not insulated from what is happening around the world, agrees Gautam Chatterjee, Chief Executive of Dharavi Development Authority. But, he adds, in an economic meltdown it is the formal sector that gets more affected than the informal sector. There is an inherent flexibility in the latter to cope, indicating a silver lining, if one can call it that.

While conceding that difficult times do erode the workers’ incomes — say from Rs 140 to Rs 120 — they are, in a sense, more exposed to such vagaries in the market and can absorb them better, he explains.

Similar observations resonate across the many small units that crowd Dharavi, separated as they are by narrow, dingy lanes and open drains in some cases. A climb up a rickety ladder is the entrance to a leather unit that makes wallets for city showrooms.

Three young men, all from Bihar, share the tiny room with a sewing machine and other tools; entertainment is provided by the neighbouring unit’s radio blaring out through a common window.

Mumtaz, a young man dressed in lungi and banian, shows the finished product, a fancy-looking “Trusardi” wallet. Unsure how much the product sells for in the market, a worker says they are paid about Rs 800 a week.

There is less work in recent months, he admits, unable to pinpoint any reason for it. When there is no work, people go looking out for it in other units, says another worker.

Asked if there were fears over the recent flare-up against north Indian workers, a slightly older worker in the group replies with a serious look, “People will go anywhere in India in search of work, and that is their right.” But he admits that the issue has only added to their worries.

The sentiment is not too different in a neighbouring room, where “ladies’ bags” are being made. The deep-brown leather purse looks expensive, but the unit head says it is sold to dealers at Rs 500 a piece.

At least five workers, again all from Bihar, are crammed into this 6 ft x 8 ft room. The headman pays the rent for the room, besides paying the workers (some of them stay in the partitioned space overhead) Rs 100 a day.

As women peer out from a neighouring room and children wail at the commotion, one worker, Mohammed Illyas, comes down to join his fellow workers. The recent terror attacks and overseas “lafda” have resulted in less work, he states. When asked to explain, he nails it thus: people in other countries are losing jobs and buying less, to save money. Only essentials are being bought. So showrooms are selling less and they, in turn, are contracting less work.

Challenges and change

The economic dynamics apart, Dharavi is in the midst of change engineered by the State Government’s Rs 9,000-plus crore redevelopment plan, which was set in motion this year.

There are 57,000 formal structures, each further split into two levels (upper and lower), and they house anywhere from five to 10 people or more — making it tricky to put figure to the number of units and people that work out of this 600-acre establishment.

But with revenues of Rs 4,000 crore reportedly generated from here annually, Dharavi pulsates with energy and an instinct that ticks away in the face of challenges.

The leather re-processing community, for instance, has seen 95 per cent of the tanneries move out of the city on environmental concerns, says Ashok Kumar of Bombay Tannery, who had arrived in Dharavi about 35 years ago. Those operating in Dharavi have to sort out resettlement issues relating to the land they have been allotted, the encroachers there, and the need for a common effluent treatment plant, he says.

Small units producing snacks such as chikkis and chaklis have been hurt because of intense competition and price cuts, says Paul Dorai of Dharavi Food Product Manufacturers Welfare Association. Competition also comes from multinational products like Pepsi’s Kurkure and branded potato wafers, as they sell in small and attractive packs that steal the thunder from these small players.

However, another snack maker, from Tamil Nadu, observes that there is always a market for such items. Even as we speak, his young workers mix and pack channa, fried-dal snacks, chips and so on using their bare hands; the packs would be carted off into the city and neighbouring Nashik.

No glamour, just hard work

The grimy canvas of Dharavi has provided the backdrop for several films and documentaries, though none quite as high-profile as Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire. But far removed from that glitz of celluloid, workers at units that crush bones to get an oil-like product, the zari-makers, women making Lijjat pappad, pottery workers and so on work non-stop, turning the wheels of the Dharavi machinery.

For the Maharashtrian women making Lijjat pappad, the demand has been good, allowing them to supplement home income, besides keeping the children at school, says one woman. “I have grown old doing this,” she quips cheerfully, stating that she has been making pappads for the last 30 years!

For Rekha, another worker, making pappads and snacks became a necessity when her mother-in-law fell ill and money was needed for treatment. But now she uses the additional income to run the home, she says.

Venturing further along Dharavi’s crowded lanes brings us to units making shirts and other readymades.

Clothing Manufacturers Association’s Babubhai S. Ayar agrees that business has been affected but points out that over the last two decades Dharavi has improved, and more changes were in the offing with the organised redevelopment.

Earlier, workers flocked to Mumbai as there was less money and development back in their States. But the numbers of such migrants have halved thanks to the industrial development in other States, he says. Moreover, rents are high in Dharavi, making it more viable for people to work in other States, he adds.

This observation is echoed by a family from Gujarat which has been making clay pots for the last five generations. “Pots find use throughout a lifetime, from birth to death,” the head of the family quips, seated in the hot, dark shed and surrounded by kilns and other material used to make clay products.

“But we work from six in the morning to six in the evening, with no outside help, and make Rs 20 additionally on each pot. Our children are amazed by this,” he says, adding that the children go to school and will probably not follow the family in this craft.

But there are no such family ties for the seven zari workers from Bihar who sit bent over the kaftans onto which they add intricate embroidery patterns. Paid Rs 200 for 13 hours, they work in a modest, hot room, accessible only by a narrow side-ladder — a silent testimony that despite the winds of change and recession, roads still lead to Dharavi for workers looking to eke out a livelihood.