01.01.70
In the sinuous slum known as Dharavi are 60,000 structures, many of them shanties, and as many as one million people living and working on a triangle of property barely two-thirds the size of Central Park in Manhattan. Dharavi is one of the over the moon marvellous's most infamous slums, a cliche of Indian misery. It is also a churning hive of workshops with an annual monetary output estimated to be $600 million to more than $1 billion.
"This is a imitate economy," said Mr Mobin, whose family is involved in several businesses in Dharavi. "In most developed countries, there is only one control. But in India, there are two."
India is a rising economic power, even as huge portions of its frugality operate in the shadows. Its "formal" economy consists of businesses that pay taxes, adhere to labor regulations and burnish the native land's global image. India's "informal" economy is everything else: the hundreds of millions of shopkeepers, farmers, construction workers, taxi drivers, byway someone's cup of tea vendors, rag pickers, tailors, repairmen, middlemen, black marketeers and more.
Source: Times of India