dharavi

When Dharavi is fixed up, "more buyers will come to my workshop, " he said.

To the slum-dwellers of Kibera or Dharavi, all this may seem distant, indeed far-fetched.

Dharavi is just one of dozens of informal settlements that provide shelter to around half of Mumbai's inhabitants.

At home: A woman watches television in her one-room home in Dharavi on April 5, 2008.

But, for Dharavi's detractors, the shantytown is an eyesore on an aspiring city.

In Dharavi, a slum outside Mumbai, an illiterate mother called Aruna sits in her tiny one-room flat, which is home to ten people.

The organization said it tries to show life in Dharavi without being intrusive, disruptive or exploitative.

In Dharavi, a Mumbai slum with perhaps 1m inhabitants, many alleys are too narrow to turn a wheelbarrow around.

Toilets are scarce and a 2006 study found that there was only one toilet per 1, 440 Dharavi residents.

Dharavi is the name given to an area of over 50 neighborhoods east of Mahim and Bandra.

Trash to treasure: Dharavi may look like a junkyard, but there's no such thing as junk here.

In Dharavi the slum performs not only a lot of services for itself, but it performs services for the city at large.

Certain corners of Dharavi have even gone upmarket with bars, beauty parlours and clothing boutiques.

In fact, Dharavi supply tap-water and electricity 24 hours. It is much better comparing other slums in the rest of the world.

Welcome to Dharavi, one of the largest slums in the world.

A young girl walks through Mumbai's Dharavi slum, home to about a million people.

A 175-hectare maze of impenetrable dark alleys and corrugated shacks, Dharavi swarms with more than a million residents.

Will Mumbai officials heed the will of the residents of Dharavi, many of whom are proud of their community?

Many Dharavi residents are very resistant to the plan.

But Dharavi remains a land of recycling opportunity for many rural Indians.

In some parts of Dharavi, there is one shared tap for every 10 homes; in other parts, almost every home has a jerry-rigged tap.

His coverage on "Dharavi: Mumbai's Shadow City, " is featured in the May 2007 issue of National Geographic.

Above, Dharavi residents shout antigovernment slogans during a protest on June 18, 2007.

In Dharavi, 80% plastics in Bombay was recycled here, more than 250, 000 people make a living on it.

On the right track? : People cross railway tracks in Dharavi on Feb.

The population of Dharavi is thought to exceed 1 million people.

The picture shows a slum in Dharavi, Bombay. A mother is putting her daughter's clothes on.

The Dharavi slum in Mumbai, India, at twilight on October 9, 2011.

But side by side you have Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia.