egha Gupta spends a lot of time these days at an Udupi restaurant, a stone’s throw away from the maze called Dharavi, one of the largest slums in the world. This is where she meets her suppliers, prospec-tive funders and others who are curious about the new business she has launched, like this writer for instance. Last fortnight, Gupta launched a portal that sells every-thing from exquisite works of pottery to

handmade sherwanis to leather accesso-ries like belts, shoes, purses and wallets. Their USP: “Made in Dharavi”.

Dharavimarket.com, a for-profit ven-ture, hopes to take the products manufac-tured by the craftspeople of Dharavi to the rest of the world. “The idea is to take the products of Dharavi mainstream. Only for-eign tourists, people, involved with social work or who have business links come to

D h a r av i , ” s ays 28-year-old Gupta, a journalist-turned-ur-banologist who has been involved with Dharavi for over half a decade now. “Most people see Dharavi just as a slum. I hope this venture will change that perception,” says Gupta.

Is there more to Dharavi other than what’s shown in the movies: crime, claus-trophobic lanes and crippling poverty? Just a stroll in Dharavi busts these percep-tions. Dharavi changes character every 100 metres. Languages change. You are likely hear Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Hin-di depending on which quarter of Dhara-vi you visit. So do occupations. Enter one neighbourhood of Dharavi and all you see is crammed houses full of people busy stitching leather wallets, purses and shoes. Another corner of Dharavi is packed with bhattis (kilns) and work-

s h o p s spinning out earth-en pots and diyas. Yet an-other quarter re-cycles all the plastic that Mumbai uses and throws away callously.

Leather & WhatsApp“Dharavi has several manufacturing in-dustries, most of which are small scale. Leather goods, pottery, zari work and food products [from papad to idlis] are manufactured in Dharavi,” says Sanjay Shinde, convener, Aapli Mumbai, an NGO which works in Dharavi. Dharavi isn’t as poor as it looks either.

“WhatsApp is very popular in Dhara-vi,” explains Gupta. “Most workshop owners use it to conduct business,” she adds. This is how it works: when a crafts-man makes a kurta or leather purse for a client, he shoots a picture with his smart phone and pings it across to the customer before the latter places a bulk order.

Faqruddin Shaikh, one of the suppliers of leather goods for Dharavimarket.com, is one such WhatsApp user. Twenty-six-year-old Shaikh’s family has been based out of Dharavi for several generations and has been involved in the leather business. He specializes in bulk orders of wallets, purses and other finished leather prod-

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A start-up hopes to sell products made by the slum’s craftspeople across the world

Dharavi’s Digital Leap

3,00,000Estimated number of idlis

made in Dharavi every day and sold all

over Mumbai

leather goods manufacturing

units

$600 mn to $1.5 bn

557 acres

Geographical spread

5,000

6-10 lakhThe population

Estimated size of the economy

“The idea is to change the perception about Dharavi being just a

slum…Dharavi is much more. Dharavi market

hopes to give the craftspersons here a chance to sell across

the world” Megha Gupta, founder, Dharavimarket.com

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P H O T O S : T V M A H A L I N G A M

ucts and counts ONGC, Nabard, several engi-neering companies and the “BKC wallah stock exchange” (NSE) among his clients. “I don’t use email but I use WhatsApp a lot for sending samples,” says Shaikh.

This insight led Gupta to create an app that allows craftspeople to upload images and details of their product (like weight, cost and size) to the backend of Dharavima-rket.com. Gupta, then, verifies the details, adds a commission to the product and then puts it up for sale.

Gupta had another surprise waiting when she launched the app. A committed iPhone user, she decided to launch an Android app, as the platform has more users in India. “I bought a basic `6,500 Android smartphone only to realize that most people I dealt with in Dharavi had smartphones which cost ̀ 15,000-20,000,” she adds, with a smile.

No Interviews Please Narottam Tank doesn’t do interviews. Nei-ther is he too fond of foreign tourists. “They

come here to gawk at the poverty…to express their pity,” says Tank. “With god’s grace, we are not short of anything. Just because I live in Dharavi and work in a place like this…,” says Tank, pointing to the crowded work-shop crammed with cardboards and packag-ing material, “…doesn’t mean that I need anybody’s pity or help.”

Tank lives and operates out of the Kumb-harwada quarter of Dharavi, where potters of Gujarati origin have been living in Mumbai for close to a century. He had humble begin-nings, selling pottery off the main road in Dharavi. Today, he runs a business which ex-ports pottery and other handmade crafts like diyas (lamps) across the world. “My products are sold across the world, to the UK, Italy, the US and France under the brand name, Har-siddhi,” says Tank, whose annual business turnover is close to `1 crore. Every year in February, Tank flies down to Dubai to attend the Gulf Food Expo. “For networking pur-poses,” says Tank.

Outside his workshop, it is tough to recon-

cile the man who packs diyas seated on the floor, who flies to Dubai for networking, with the open sewers and kachcha lanes. But that’s Dharavi for you. It’s a slum, a place where peo-ple live and a prospering business hub.

“If you look at most advertisements for real estate companies, they have one message: live, work and play. Dharavi offers exactly that for the people who live there,” says Gupta. “Workers, mostly migrants, live in the houses they work in. In the evening, the main road turns into a cricket ground once businesses shut down.” And that’s something most out-siders from city planners to banks tend to ig-nore, at their own peril.

Loans and Redevelopment“The old perception among banks that “satra matlab khatra” [17 is equal to danger] has hardly changed,” says Arun Maru, an entre-preneur who runs a pottery store with Tank on Dharavi’s 90 Feet Road. Seventeen is Dhar-avi’s pin code and banks have traditionally

been wary of lending to businesses that are based in the area. As a result, most businesses find it tough to expand. Maru, himself, works in the shipping business while his brother, an engineer, has a corporate job. “My wife and sister-in-law run the business. If we had access to credit, we could focus full time on the busi-ness,” says Maru, whose family has lived in Dharavi for three generations.

“Unfortunately, the state, bureaucracy and planners have always seen Dharavi just as slum and not as an informal manufactur-ing area and that has manifested itself in the haphazard redevelopment efforts undertak-en so far,” says Aravind Unni, a planner with NGO Yuva. For instance, in 2003, the govern-ment hired NRI architect Mukesh Mehta who suggested that each household be given 225 sq ft of housing in high rises.

The problem with that approach: what do people like potters and leather manufacturers who need more space for their businesses do? “We have suggested that the government cre-ate industrial zones within Dharavi…one for potters, one for garment manufacturers etc…like the way they have done in MIDC [Maha-rashtra Industrial Development Corporation] zones,” says Aapli Mumbai’s Shinde.

Make no mistake. Dharavi is not utopia. It is overcrowded. It lacks basic amenities and its population is vulnerable to diseases like malaria, typhoid, dengue etc. But, it is also a commercial hub — one that looks unlike any other you know.

Exports and GrantsDharavi is a playground for middlemen. Most craftspeople, in the leather and pottery busi-ness, say that it is tough to crack the exports business. As a result, most of the exports busi-ness is transacted by middlemen or agents. That’s where they hope a digital venture like dharavimarket.com can bridge that gap.

Gupta says that her first few sales have come from abroad. “We have already had or-ders from Poland, Australia, France and South Africa,” says Gupta. “I expect more sales to come from abroad, from tourists who have either been to Dharavi or are aware of it. There is a lot more awareness about buying from communities like Dharavi abroad than in India,” she adds. Her suppliers are also egging her to pitch for corporate bulk orders, as the festive season is almost here.

For now, Gupta says she is “all in” and has invested ̀ 5 lakh in setting up the website, app and other basic infrastructure. A grant from a leading American university for the venture is also almost in place. “I wanted this to be sus-tainable and therefore made it a for profit ven-ture,” says Gupta. “For this venture to be tak-en seriously, I will have to demonstrate sales to the suppliers,” she adds. And the language of business is one that Dharavi understands.�

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Narottam Tank, a Dharavi-based entrepreneur, exports pottery work to countries like the UK, Italy, US and France. He started life selling pottery on the roadside and today runs a business with an annual turnover of `1 crore

Dharavi changes character every 100 metres. Languages change. So do occupations. In one neighbourhood people are busy making leather goods; another corner is packed with kilns

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What is Dharavimarket.com all about?A for-profit start-up that plans to sell products made by craftspeople from Dharavi. The portal is already up. An android app that lists product details is also up and running

What does the portal sell?Bags, accessories, shoes, pottery, leather products, for now. Likely to expand its range

Who is it targeted at?Indians, who mostly associate Dharavi with squalor and slums, and also foreigners. The portal also hopes to bag bulk orders from corporates

How will it make money?The portal will charge a commission for each product sold

Who runs Dharavi Market?A journalist-turned-urbanologist, Megha Gupta is the founder of the portal

The Online Market Place