When people bring their small valuables to take loans for subsistence, goldsmiths here know that times are well and truly bad. Kumbharwada, pottery units and market at the intersection of 90-Feet and 60-Feet roads, lies forlorn. From where will I pay my staff?" People here are afraid to tell us anything and equally unclear about specific micro details needed for our contact tracing exercise," remarks an official of the team. Post manufacturing, the products are sent for several rounds of quality examinations, for product standardization. Is It Better To Lease Or Buy A Car In Summer 2022? All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. We can send a virus patient to the rooftop (to be isolated)," she said wryly. Theres marginally more open space here between homes that double up as storehouses for finished pottery products, large potters wheels occupying the open spaces. well-crafted, value-for-money products, says DharaviMarket's Gupta (Image: Snapdeal), PwC Cloud and Digital Transformation BrandVoice, How To Earn Cash Rewards For Everyday Spending. Two, the BMC teams have found it next to impossible to quarantine or isolate suspected cases. Behind the road and perpendicular to it lies an unfathomable maze of alleys and passageways wide enough for only two adults to walk by, hosting a jigsaw of semi-permanent ground-plus-one structures that are workshops of leather goods and double up as homes of workers. Jefferies upgra Ayman al-Zawahiri killed in US drone strike: What Obama Har Ghar Tiranga: PM Modi, BJP leaders changes social m Delhi Traffic Alert! A month after the shutdown, this trickle has begun. The garment marketworkshops and tiny retail unitshas been shut too. We were on the verge of sending a large order of wallets last month to a five-star hotel in Ooty and Kerala when we had to shut. This is a subscriber only feature Subscribe Now to get daily updates on WhatsApp. Within Dharavi, there is a clamour for the relatively tiny sector of gold melting units and shops to do some business behind closed doors. He has a few thousands stashed away in his locked suitcase, he says, and might just go back home once the railways resume long-distance trains. The packages are here taking up my space, my money is stuck, and maybe those guys dont even want these wallets now.". Our highly devoted and dedicated team of professionals put in all of their efforts, to attain a number of the firms predefined goals and objectives. The dozen-odd containment zones that have been marked out by BMC since early April have deepened these fears. Copyright HT Digital Streams Limited All rights reserved. This, in Dharavi packed to its gills, is easier planned than done. The row of leather goods shops along the snaking 90-Feet Road in Dharavi in central Mumbai has been shut for more than a month now. ONGC. It will take months for Dharavi businesses to get back on track and years for them to boom again, says a gold melting unit owner who saw the 2008 downturn. In the plastic recycling zone, Abdul Malik, the owner of a unit, echoes thoughts of all of Dharavi. It'll just take a moment. In the innards of one dimly-lit such workshop, two young men idle away, sharing a phone to take in a TikTok video, barely managing to smile. BMC medical officer Virendra Mohite, who heads the team, says that the civic team innovates its approach and methods to do its job. This pushed the BMC to look for alternatives. New anti-racism strategy: Canada immigration may never Nazara Tech shares rally 40% in 5 days. The BMC team is busy testing thousands of residents here, forcing them into some sort of quarantine, and drawing up containment zones. Now, theres no work and we dont have anywhere to go," said Kesarben in Kumbharwada, dominated by migrant Gujaratis. He and his team members have barely been home. Tycoon Dennis Uys Debt-Laden Udenna Sells Malampaya Stake To Billionaire Enrique Razons Firm, Loss Ballooned At China Tavern Chain Helens Amid Lockdowns, Biden And Xi Talk, But Not About The Global Economic Slowdown, Crypto Exchange Zipmex Seeks Bankruptcy Protection In Singapore As Crypto Crisis Spreads, Chinese Billionaire Jack Ma To Cede Control Of Fintech Giant Ant Group: WSJ, Chinese Grocery Startup Missfresh Faces Cashflow Crisis As Suppliers Protest, Asias Taper Tantrum 2.0 Bears Chinese Fingerprints, Chinas Zero Covid Mess Is Infecting Asias Economies. In many quarters, this uncertainty and apprehensions overtake fears about the pandemic. Precious days passed before the BMC health team figured out that he had also owned another tiny apartment nearby which had been used by five men who had reportedly returned from the Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi. He used to pay each of them roughly 200 a day, besides stocking up basic rations and providing a cooking gas stove. I write about business in India, especially the new economy. Within days of the first few cases, the BMC turned a nearby sports complex into a quarantine facilitynow used welland enlisted beds in the government-run Sion Hospital, a stones throw away, to be used exclusively for covid-19 patients from Dharavi. On perpendicular walls, it put up maps of Mumbai with Dharavi showing prominently and a map of India, and invited people to tie colourful strings or ribbons from Dharavi to their home towns, villages or places of business interest. They live, make and sell all in Dharavi, and every home produces something, said Megha Gupta, an urban researcher who aggregated the entrepreneurs through her Dharavimarket.com which in turn has tied up with Snapddeal. The highly advanced infrastructural facility at Pakeeza Leather has been laced with all the necessary machinery and equipment, necessary for the attainment of several of the firms predefined goals and objectives. ft room, the machinery is at the back of this unit, and his employees sleep in the mezzanine loft. asked Malik. Nearly half of Indias urban population live in houses where the per capita space is less than a single room, analysed Mumbai-based economics professors Mohd Imran Khan and Anu Abraham in a recent paper in the Economic And Political Weekly. His worry is the family back home (he refuses to disclose where in Bihar because he believes cops will go there) will go hungry if he cannot send regular remittances. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The exclusive Dharavi Snapdeal store will sell luggage, shoes, accessories, pottery, apparel and jewelry made in the slum. This coronavirus will go someday but we will have nowhere to go except the kabrastan (graveyard)," despairs Mohd Abdullah, another unit owner. One, residents were not forthcoming on their movements, which adversely impacted contact tracing of covid-19 patients. In Dharavi, the work-from-home practice did not arrive with the covid-19; it was always there, just the way life and work have been arranged across the swath of tiny and cramped places. Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Where is the space here?" The artisans who have jumped onto the e-commerce marketplace through Snapdeal include the large family of Hussain Sheikh who make leather jackets and bags as well as the family of Dharmesh Maru, fourth generation potters whose eco-friendly terracotta plates, glasses and teapots are much in demand. Snapdeal said Dharavi has at least 500 apparel makers, each making 500 shirts a day. Between lives and livelihoods, there is literally no choice here. This is our entire life, our universe. In addition to this, regular perks and trainings are provided to them, for keeping them motivated. he said. This is a throbbing and thriving manufacturing centre, built by large doses of enterprise and risk, with intricate networks of cash and credit, surviving without formal subsidies, protection or handouts from governmentsparts of it running afoul of law, parts of it falling between the legal and illegal if not the latter. Definitive data of the number of workshops and factory units is elusive given that a number of them function below the radar. Its the same story for other businessesfrom leather and aluminium to plastics, gold and pottery. The strings and ribbons made a dense tapestry all across India, with the exception of Kashmir and parts of the North-East. Most entrepreneurs are illiterate and have no idea about e-commerce, though the slums annual revenues are estimated to run into billions of dollars. One of our top priorities, quality, is never compromise by us. Buyers will snap up Dharavi's products not because they are made in a slum but because of they are [+] well-crafted, value-for-money products, says DharaviMarket's Gupta (Image: Snapdeal), 2022 Forbes Media LLC. The entrepreneurs and artisans from one of the worlds largest slums, Dharavi (pop. Many craftsmen did not even have photos of their products to showcase on the e-commerce site and provided photos clicked on their smartphones. Over 200 small and medium entrepreneurs from the bustling slum are now on Snapdeal, one of the country's large online retail marketplaces. Police advises commuters to avoid A ground report on how the hub of Mumbais informal economy worth an estimated $1 billion has come to a halt, The garment market has been shut. *Smruti Koppikar is a Mumbai-based journalist and urban chronicler. My cash inflow has stopped. Dharavi will have to rely on its resourcefulness to recover. Malik and others in the plastic recycling business have no idea what they will do till 3 May until when the lockdown is in force and, importantly, after that because trading agents do not answer phone calls and factory managers say they are flush with unused stock of pellets. The division of the team is done on the basis of their skills, experiences and area of expertise. Across the myriad lanes and markets of Dharavi, the pulsating hub of the informal economy in Mumbai worth an estimated $1 billion, its the same story. We work, cook, eat, play and sleep in more or less the same space within an arms distance from one another. "", bus company trying to sell Leather Goods AVOID, D/53, Kalpataru CHS., Sion-Bandra Link Road, Opp. Social distancing, in particular, is a joke here. In the last fortnight, the BMC found it was up against two barriers. Taking the first steps into the global e-commerce market is a significant milestone for hundreds of industrious artisans who thrive in the teeming, squalor-ridden maze of Dharavi. Until now, most of their products were traded in the slum or in the wholesale markets nearby . The clanging, the low hums, the uproar from aluminium smelting units, soap and plastic recycling workshops have fallen silent. In Dharavi, this space is often one-fourth or one-sixth of a single room. There just isnt enough space anywhere in Dharavi. Some owner-traders are unwilling to even acknowledge that Dharavis first victim to covid-19 was a fellow garment trader. The team has been parted into several highly operational units, for reasons of managing the operations of the firm, in the most efficient and effective manner. Residents, however, have never seen anything like covid-19. You are now subscribed to our newsletters. Now the government and doctors and BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) sahebs are all coming to say that we must keep distance. Oops! Owing to this, its finishing, elegant design, strength and resistance to heat and moisture, is widely praised and preferred in the market. Follow this author to improve your content experience. This process with highly level of efficiency and precision, eliminate all manufacturing defects. We have always done your work-from-home thing, or better call it live-at-workplace. We cannot isolate people at their homes here," remarked Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner in charge of G-North ward in which Dharavi falls. When we have done no work for the last one month, why will we get any payment," asks a worker who identifies himself as Bablu, barely 20 and a Salman Khan fan. It also has 1,000 families of potters whose earthen lamps light up Mumbai city during Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, and whose ornate pots are exported to Europe and North America. BLDG. Social distancing, regular hand-washing and self-isolation, all preventive measures suggested by the World Health Organization and repeatedly advised by governments and health workers, are privileges that residents of Dharavi cannot afford. Remove some to bookmark this image. The facility regularly upgraded, helps us in maintaining our reputation in the market. The despair comes from the realization here that businesses in Dharavi, from leather and aluminium to plastics, garments, gold and pottery, however essential they may be to the formal economy, would not be eligible for the relief packages and economic stimuli that governments will roll out. The youngest has gone to get some rations," said Mohammed Zahid, owner of the workshop who prides on being a trained designer. The slum, its squalor and sweatshops, its inhospitable living conditions and open filth, its insanitary and exploitative work conditions, its pull for multi-million dollar films like Slumdog Millionaire and Gully Boy, its appeal as a poverty tourist destination, all mask the fact that it is, essentially, a large multi-sector industrial estate. In that densely-populated area which many equate to a special economic zone, families live and work out of tiny 80 sq ft home-cum-workshops. This virus has killed our business," says Ram Narayan, if we cannot even go out to get milk and vegetables, how will we ever get out business up and running?". Sion, Dharavi, Mumbai- 400017, Maharashtra, India. Manufacturing and Trading of all kinds of leather goods. However, it is estimated that Dharavi has 20,000-25,000 workshops and units across all economic activity. Only sullenness hangs here, broken by occasional jabs of fear as news trickles in of rising covid-19 cases and deaths.Within 13 days of the garment traders death on 6 April, Dharavi registered 11 deaths and 138 positive cases. In good times, the rooftops of the uneven but colourfully decorated houses hold extra raw material or carefully stacked fragile products away from human traffic. We are considered in the market to be one of the leading manufacturers, suppliers and traders of this impeccable range of Leather Products. The fear about this strange, unknown disease is exacerbated by their fear of the destruction it will bring to their businesses. Here, lives and livelihoods are interwoven in inextricable ways. In an unusual installation at an arts exhibition three years ago, the urban research and planning group URBZ traced these connections. In the gated colonies and buildings, this is relatively easy; in the open slums-cum-workplaces, its a challenge. This is where we live, this is where we work. Dharavi, spread over 240 hectares and housing more than 700,000 people, including large groups of migrants from all over the country, is familiar with diseasefrom asthma and malaria to typhoid and syphilis. The tremors from Dharavi will be felt far and wide. The facility has been parted into a number of highly operational units, for reasons of attaining smoother and highly effective management of the firms operations. Your session has expired, please login again. In Asias largest informal settlement or slum thats essentially an economic centre, the dilemma of policymakers pushed to choose between saving lives and livelihoods acquires a painful urgency. These are four of the five men who work for me but are bloody wasting their time now. With Dharavi shuttered, the fumes and fires are undoubtedly fewer. But a large segment of Mumbais economyand hundreds of thousands of livesare upended. This took root and expanded organically, without design or formal planning, in spite ofnot because ofdisinterested or hostile governments and the powerful real estate lobby that eyes it for the monetary value of land. Maliks 25-year-old unit, like others in this zone, employs young boys often brought by their male relatives from Bihar and West Bengal, to pulverize used plastic cans and bottles into plastic pellets which are sorted and sold to small-scale factories through agents. 1 M) located in the heart of Indias financial capital, Mumbai, have made a formal entry into Indias thriving e-commerce market. The shutters on his shops on 90-Feet Road, Leather Touch and Zaraa, have not been opened since mid-March when the Maharashtra government enforced a shutdown in Mumbai almost 10 days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide lockdown. Thus we engage in the utilization of high grade raw materials and modern machines, in compliance with the set industry norms and guidelines for manufacturing this range. It'll just take a moment. The summer months are when potters here produce wares and send them to large godowns and wholesalers because they have only a small window between the end of monsoon and the rising demand for pottery products during festivals. Log in to our website to save your bookmarks. As the number of positive cases hovered around 90, the civic body set up fever camps" across Dharavi in an attempt to screen as many as possible while negotiating local resistance. There are a few predominantly residential bastis and nagars, especially the redeveloped buildings that rise above the informal settlement on its edges, but the rest of Dharavi is a flexible, mixed-use space. You may opt-out by. Two other men sleep within centimetres of each other in the mezzanine loft amid an array of differently-sized colourful leather pieces. Sacks of pellets occupy more than half the space in the 150 sq. The first victims family, for example, would not share any information except that he did not have a passport and only went to the local mosque. Log in to our website for add to watchlist. In case you cant find any email from our side, please check the spam folder. Theres no saying when the covid-19 curve here will flatten out but the economic curve already has.