Mum's Dharavi is a eg of sustainable life: Charles

London, Oct 10: Britain's Prince Charles, says that Dharavi, Asia's largest slum located in the centre of Mumbai, is a best example of sustainable living that British towns could learn and follow.

Charles says, Dharavi is better coordinated than many western towns and cities, and that the occupants responsively practise sustainable living, and people could learn lessons from the way people live their lives in Dharavi.

He says, "when you enter what looks from the outside like an huge heap of plastic and rubbish, you instantly come upon an complex network of streets with miniature shops, houses and workshops, each one made out of any material that comes to hand."

Charles says, "We have a great deal to learn about how complex systems can self-organise to create a harmonious whole".

"In Dharavi people manage to separate all their waste at home and it gets recycled without any official collection facilities at all. It is not done in safe conditions and few people would want to do this work but that is not my point," he added.

"The actual lesson I took from Dharavi was about the vast asset we can call 'community capital'. The slum has built up its own financial sector, with community banking enterprises using the savings of residents to extend loans to borrowers," he said.

OneIndia News