MumbaiDharavi have been described as Asia`s largest slum and is a heart shaped settlement in central Mumbai , India .It is located between Mumbai`s two main suburban railway lines the Western and Central Railways. To its west are Mahim and Bandra, and to the north lies the Mithi River, which empties into the Arabian Sea through the Mahim Creek. To its south and east are Sion and Matunga. Dharavi is linked by the following roads:Bandra Sion Link Road ,Mahim Sion Link Road ,90ft Road and the Dharavi MainRoad.

Initially Dharavi was one of the six great Koliwadas of Bombay -one of the city`s vast fishing communities.The kolis were the fisherfolk who lived at the edge of the creek(tidal water channel) that came in from the Arabian Sea .Sion had a dam adjacent to Dharavi that quickened the process of joining separate islands into one long tapered mass.The creek dried up and the fisherfolk were deprived of their livelihood , but the newly drained marshes provided space for new communities to move in. The migrants could be roughly divided into two broad categories.

The first were people from Maharashtra, and in particular from the Konkan coast, as well from Gujarat. The Kumbhars came from Gujarat to establish a potters colony called Kumbharwada. The other settlers were direct migrants to the city, many of them trained in a trade or a craft. Muslim tanners from Tamil Nadu migrated to Dharavi and set up the leather tanning industry. Thousands travelled from Uttar Pradesh to work in the textile industry .Some were the embroidery workers who started the ready-made garments trade. From Tamil Nadu, workers joined the flourishing business of making sweets and various other snacks.

Dharavi is often described as a Free Economic Zone because it is beyond the traditional Indian economic intricacies of red tape, licenses, duties, municipal permissions, paperwork and taxes.The slum has a population of about 100,000 people producing goods worth over $500 million a year . The dwellings in Dharavi is characterised by ramshackle corrugated shades in the name of homes made of tin, plywood, plastic, pukkah bricks, sheets of asbestos.An overview of the entire region make Dharavi look just like piles of earth, sand, clay and other materials. Dharavi therefore stands as the human ant colony built by swarms of poors.