ISSUE 02: THE TOOLHOUSE STORY - A PEEK INTO DHARAVI’S MULTI FUNCTIONAL SPACES 1st October 2020 One month after the extended theyare are coping. coping. Based Based on ontheir had bounced back to normal. lockdown ended on August 31st, theirresponses, responses, and and first first hand A few respondents went to the we speak to our randomised handobservations observations of our of ourvery own extent of saying, “It seemed sample set of 38 respondents veryteam own member team member in Dharavi, in it like the lockdown never once again to know how they Dharavi,seemed it likeseemed life like life happened”. Our line of research in this newsletter attempts to understand the idiosyncrasies of Dharavi that allowed it to bounce back so quickly, while the rest of the city and country are still recuperating. The Tool-house [1] Dharavi is home to Rented to a family Rented to Urbz approximately 20,000 factories [2] and small businesses, while being home to more than [3] Rented to an 8,50,000 residents. It is a embroidery workshop hyper-mixed use settlement, Owner’s room with a hyper-linked network Rented to a family of economic and production Owner’s room chains. The concept of a tool- house embodies the smallest unit of this system; a house as Owner’s room a space for residency as well as Kitchen space rented economic activity. In Dharavi, to a food business the tool-house exists within a network of thousands of tool houses which amass a scale of production that satisfies the basic tenets of business economics and profitability, while fostering a sense of Picture illustrating the tool-house concept observed in the building which housed the URBZ office in Dharavi from 2010 to 2013 kinship and locality. 1 3 https://www.urbz.net/homegrown https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/inside-dharavi-india-s-largest-slum-and-a- 2 https://time.com/5892712/india-economy-covid-19/ major-covid-hotspot/story-ZbX5VOngcJImsK9F4ohBvM.html urbz.net | Page 01 This network also satisfies the basic tenets of individual economics. A Potter In Dharavi 26 respondents have Abbasbhai who belongs to Kumbharwada, began workspaces in Dharavi his workshop on the ground floor and home on the first floor. As his family expanded and needed 9 respondents don’t more space, Abbasbhai moved his workshop next have workpaces in door. Most of his employees live in Kumbharwada or in Dharavi. “In a pottery business, people are Dharavi hired based on specific jobs, following a specific sequence of activities. Workers are needed at 3 respondents have specific times, and living in the very next lane mobile workspaces allows that,” says Ashwin Wadhar, who has resumed work at Abbasbhai’s workshop and Thus the tool-house is an is producing stock for the upcoming festival of embodiment of a mixed-use Diwali. structure as well as a mixed- use settlement. It is a character so intrinsic to the built fabric of Dharavi, and allows for an 26 out of our 35 respondents jobs outside of Dharavi, 6 are economically viable way for have a work space in Dharavi, salaried employees and only 3 small production houses to indicating a particular live- ran entrepreneurial ventures. sustain amidst the rising urban work setup prevalent in Our survey indicates that costs, while adding to Dharavi’s [4] Dharavi. Out of the 9 with most respondents involved $1 billion economy. 9 No 15 Yes 2 at somepoint The chart shows number of respondents who have their workspace in Dharavi and if their workspace is in the same building they live in. It also shows people who used to work from home at some point. Abbasbhai at his workshop in Kumbharwada, Dharavi 4 https://www.livemint.com/news/india/dharavi-s-economy-goes-down-the-tubes-11587152095394.html urbz.net | Page 02 in small-scale production restrictions with different or entrepreneurial activities intensities during the 5 month prefer to live and work in close long period. Additionally, the Big ideas proximity. Our respondents’ Indian economy has suffered originate at definitions of workspace varies a 23.9% contraction due to the [6] home from a welding or a pottery economic lockdown , having Gyaan Rao, a 22 year old workshop to an artist’s studio, a direct impact on Dharavi’s resident of Dharavi, wants from a tailor’s workstation to a production which caters to to set up two business home-based NGO setup, from local, city, national as well ventures with his friends; garment traders business who as international customers. a garment shop and a uses his bedroom as storage However, Dharavi was one of stationery shop. Noticing to contractors who work out of the first to resume business in a lack of stationary shops their phone and project sites Mumbai. in his locality, he wants in Dharavi. This diversity in the to start one on his street, idea of a workspace questions From our survey, we observed and source the products the understanding of the strict the commonalities between for sale from Masjid land-use often imposed on those who resumed economic Bandar. Gyaan is these settlements under the activity. Proximity of workplaces expecting his first order to ambit of development. to home, resources, suppliers, arrive by 25th November, employees and customers were recurring factors which he initially wants What happened to store and sell out facilitating quick resumption of during the lockdown of his home. Because our respondents’ businesses, of his contacts in the Various phases of the while still recuperating from [5] neighbourhood , he is lockdown imposed different the economic aftermath of the sure of doing well with lockdown. sales. Gyaan wants to procure garments whole- sale and sell at various weekly markets around the city. On days without any markets, he will be storing the goods at his home, and sell them locally. With a large family at home, he predicts that he will have to take up a shop on rent soon, but will manage from home for the time being since it is the most financially Lockdown in Dharavi during the pandemic 5 https://urbz.net/pdf/dharavi-millennials 6 https://time.com/5892712/india-economy-covid-19/ urbz.net | Page 03 For some however, the break in the demand cycle, no local trains, lack of local labour, kinks in supply of raw material, Purchasing and the dependency on Power external business to resume normalcy are factors more Local Transport impactful in prolonging closure of economic Dependency activity. on external businesses Did the tool-house Factors help in resuming Affecting work faster? Businesses in Dharavi 25 of 38 Supply of Raw Market Demand Materials respondents have already resumed work, though at a slow pace. Proximity of home to work TOOLHOUSE Labour/ 17 of these 25 Workers have workspaces in Dharavi. lockdown has left the majority in our Most attributed this to physical 17 of 25 respondents country in a financially access to their workspace desperate situation and who have workspaces during lockdown, and access to depleted savings, people their network of resources. With in Dharavi said that of Dharavi jumped back to the rest of the city crippled this arrangement their feet and resumed work, due to the restricted public enabled them to however slow it may be, transport systems, the tool- resume work sooner because they could. The close house removes the commute entanglement of residences after the lockdown. barrier from impacting with the economic fabric of business. This led us to analyse the the neighbourhood enabled economic resilience of Dharavi them to do so. Even in the peak We further analysed our 15 through the lens of spatial of the lockdown, Dharavi was respondents who work in a proximities, specifically through producing masks, PPE kits and typical tool-house setup i.e. the concept of tool-house and sanitizers by tens of thousands living and working in the same [7] per day. space, or work setup being on their networks. While the one floor and residential on 6 https://urbz.net/unmasking-prejudice urbz.net | Page 04 another of the same building. 9 out of 15 such respondents claimed to have resumed work, How did the tool-house help of which many are individual post-lockdown? entrepreneurs such as Kavita Koli is a resident of Koliwada where she contractors, brokers, musicians, runs a parlour and tiffin service out of her house. artists and beauticians. Her parlour business runs out of the ground floor room, and she was able to start as soon as the Of the 17 people lockdown lifted. She attributed this to her easy whose work has access to the parlour, as well as her employees resumed in Dharavi, 9 and customers living in the neighbourhood itself. However, the number of customers and the had their workspace average daily income has been severely impacted. in the same building. Gulzar Khan is a garment trader from Dharavi who usually sources his supplies from New Delhi, This may indicate that but procured the materials from the Wadala businesses with lesser wholesale market (takes approximately 30 minutes dependency on the demand- of commute) during the lockdown. He stocks the supply cycles of hard goods supplies in his bedroom, explaining that he had were able to kick start sooner. a shop initially but since business didn’t pick up For production-related as much, he is able to manage from his room. businesses such as tailors, His family helps out when an extra pair of hands plastic recycling etc., there was are needed. His work has resumed since most of a greater dependency on city- his customers are within Dharavi, but since the wide chains of demand-supply.