Thakkar Bappa Colony
Thakkar Bappa Colony is a residential and commercial area of suburb Chembur, Mumbai. It is most famous for its shoe markets which are produced by the local population.
History
Thakkar Bappa colony originally was a refugee camp constructed by Maheshwari Meghwar, Mr. Ranshi Sirokha & Mr. Pachan Sinch, of the Kutchi people. It was for people migrating from Pakistan at the time of the partition of India and Pakistan, mainly Kutchi language speaking migrants. The 1950s saw an influx of other communities including the Mheshwari Meghwal Samaj people and the Regar community who migrated from Rajasthan and other parts of India, whose main occupation was shoe manufacturing. 99% of the occupants of the Thakkar Bapa colony were from the Kutchi and Maheshwari Meghwar community with 1% Marwari people who had came along with them. In the late 1970s there was further migration, including people from the Jeenagar community from Rajasthan and Punjab. Their sole occupation was also the manufacturing of shoes.
Today there are about 100,000 people from these three communities who have settled in Thakkar Bappa Colony and the area surrounding to it. Their daily work consists of manufacturing shoes and distributing the same to other parts of Mumbai and India.
Initially shoes were sold to wholesale markets in parts of Mumbai but in the last 20 years some of them have opened their own shoe shops and today Thakkar Bappa Colony boasts of more than a hundred shops where you could buy handmade shoes of hundreds of different varieties and range.
Demographics
The Marathi speaking people have slowly moved to other parts of Mumbai after selling their residential areas to Marwari community, and today there are around 90% of the population who speak Rajasthani. People work more than 12 to 14 hours a day for manufacturing shoes and live in the same place where they produce shoes.
Railway station
The nearest railway station is Chembur, Kurla or Tilak Nagar.