Mumbai's slum colony of Dharavi, once a coronavirus hotspot and a challenge for municipal authorities in implementing containment measures, has become free of Covid-19, nearly two years after reporting the first case of the infection.

The sprawling and congested shanty town, said to be Asia's largest, achieved the distinction on Thursday when no new coronavirus patient was found in Dharavi and at the same time there was no active case in the area, a senior Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official.