Slumless Dhaka still a dream

• 17.5pc people in Dhaka city live in 4,000 slums

• No healthy housing for this huge number of slum dwellers

• 85pc of slum dwellers rent to someone for their housing, about 90% use electricity 

• 1700 new people are being added to Dhaka every day

• Children and women are at risk in the slums 

• Govt. started work on a big project in the Dhamalkot area of the Dhaka Cantonment to shift slum dwellers

A city within another city was built by the emperors of the Ming Dynasty of China. The city named ‘Forbidden City’ was a territory of 800 palaces surrounded by high walls where ordinary citizens were not allowed to enter. That justified its name – ‘Forbidden City’.

This luxurious city was built through inhuman labour of 200,000 workers for 14 years over the blood and sweat of ordinary farmers - the actual owners of the land - who were not allowed to enter the city. 

Those days of emperors are over. Still there is a line of division with a clear indication of discrimination among people for their wealth and status in many of the urban areas across the globe. Dhaka - the capital of Bangladesh is not a different. 

With contrast in living standards, people of high-income and low-income groups are dwelling in this mega city which is a reflection of the century-old imperialism. On one side, there are rows upon rows of high-rise buildings where wealthy people lead aristocratic life. And next to it is the shadow of miseries of the struggling people - a huge population of lower income group who survive from hand to mouth serving the lords in the city.

According to the latest 2014 survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, about 600,000 people are living in slums in two city corporations of Dhaka while the statistics of non-government organisations shows 3,500,000 people are in about 4,000 slums in Dhaka meaning about 17 percent slum dwellers. 

Many new people are coming to Dhaka every day and finding shelters in the slums. From domestic workers to garment workers, drivers, day labourers are employed in various professions as there is a high demand for this aiding group of people and the reality is that without them economic activities as well as the daily life in Dhaka is not manageable. 

But there is no healthy housing for this large segment of population. According to various statistics, diarrhea is one of the common diseases at almost every slum. Most of them often suffer from gastric and cholera and a big portion do not get proper nutrition leading to dire health condition.

Mubarak Hussain Khan, assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at Jahangir Nagar University, said “According to data, diarrhea, gastritis, cholera, abdominal pain, body aches, fever, cold and cough are most common health problems of slum people. The main reason is the highly polluted environment at the slum sites. 

During present pandemic condition, urban experts are more concerned about the slum dwellers as they cannot follow proper hygiene rules due to lack of conscious and financial constraints. As a result, there is high risk for them to be infected with corona and spread corona. That risk still remains. 

Why do people live in slums despite risks of being affected with diseases?

Mubarak Hossain Khan said, “They live in slums as their earning is extremely less. After coming to the city, he or she first finds a place to stay at low cost. They find slums convenient for them.”

Fatema Akhter has been living in Karail slum of Dhaka for ten years. She works as a housemaid at Gulshan residential area. Her family has been landless since her birth. So, like many others, she has migrated to Dhaka. She said, "There was no house in my village. I couldn’t take care of my children. That's why I came to Dhaka. Let's see if I can earn livelihood."

The room where she lives has no window and so it is so dark you don't be able to see anything unless you lit a lamp. Every household items like pots and pans, small cupboards are accommodated there at a very small area. A few chickens are also kept in cages inside the room at night. 

All the houses in this slum are the same except that of the owner’s. This slum has a mass kitchen. Shahina Begum described the miseries while cooking. She cooks for a mess. Everyone has to wait in long line for every task to do. “There are four stoves here and only four can cook at a time. If they don't finish, others don't get chance. We cook one by one standing in long serials.” Similar experience is everywhere, either in toilets, bathrooms, or water taps.

Only two persons can somehow walk side by side in the narrow alley of the slum. Garbage are spread every here and there. It is difficult to look at the deplorable condition of toilets and bathing places. But the slum people here have no choice.

The funny thing is, urban people can't live without slum dwellers. The latest survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics shows that half of the slum dwellers or floating people from villages across the country have come to the big cities in search of work. Especially Dhaka and Chittagong are their destinations. When they come, they are being employed in various professions. They are employed in many professions without which the urban rich and middle class cannot survive.

Dr Fahmida Khatun, an economist and executive director of the research institute CPD, said, “The slum dwellers, could be housemaid, driver or a garment worker, have important economic role and the economy is recovering for them."

She said, "They don't get electricity in a formal way. They are paying someone for this. For water lines, they have to pay money to a middleman. Those who collect rents are involved in influential cycles. There is a political-economic dimension here.” Fahmida Khatun said that if this transaction of money was formal, its value would have been huge. 

According to a Bureau of Statistics survey, 85 percent slum dwellers pay rents to someone and about 90 percent of them use electricity. Visiting the Beltala slum, it was seen that a woman named Poppy Akhter rented a ten feet by ten feet house for Tk 2500 per month. 

The slum dwellers come to Dhaka for some kind of insecurity. The same survey shows that about 30 percent came due to poverty. The rest came due to natural calamities or river erosion. About 90 percent of the total slum dwellers of the country are landless. According to the 2016 statistics of the Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Population Fund, 1700 new people are being added to Dhaka every day.

Professor Tasnim Siddiqui, head of Ramru, an organisation that deals with internal migration, said the crisis was mainly due to Dhaka and Chittagong-centric sources of work and development. She thinks the situation will be more complicated in the future.

"We don't have enough space for service providers. Research says by 2050, more than half of the population will live in cities. It's not because the country will become a city, but because people are moving to the cities. The biggest problem in slums is security. Think of girls. They often have to spend nights in places where their security is compromised," said Professor Tasnim Siddiqui.

Siddiqui's words were proved true in the speech of Mahfuza Akter, who came from Shariatpur to Karail slum. “It's scary because there are lots of bad people in the slums. When husband goes to work, the wife might face a problem. A lot of people live together," she said. There are many other forms of insecurity. Children are at risks when their parents go to work. Professor Siddiqui was talking about the risk of trafficking children and women from slums. There are many more chances of getting sick, criminal activities.

Earlier, in various operations conducted by the law enforcement agencies, many criminal activities were found in slums. The slums are notorious for horrific activities, especially in illicit drug trade and arms trade.

How is it possible to build a decent housing for slum dwellers?

Afsana Haque, a teacher in BUET's urban and regional planning department, said it is possible within the current system of the city.

 “There are many two-storey and three-storey houses in Dhaka. We can turn those as multi-storey buildings. A large section of slum dwellers works in the garment industry. The industry owners can make living for the workers. If you think about social housing, it's possible to give these people a nice place to live.” She said it is also possible to create social housing in the vicinity of big cities which is present in many countries of the world.

The election promise of the present government includes that not a single person in the country will remain homeless. There was also promises of building flats for slum dwellers before the last election. 

What is the government doing to create decent housing for the huge population in the city slums?

Many initiatives are being taken by the government of Bangladesh, but the steps that have been taken are not enough. A question in everyone's mind - will we ever see a slumless Dhaka?

Housing and Public Works Minister SM Rezaul Karim said, tthe government has already started working on it. “There are plans for arranging full housing for slum dwellers. We have already started work on a big project in the Dhamalkot area of the Dhaka Cantonment. We have started work near the Bahantech slum.”

"These dwellings will have flats. Lower income people will be rented there as they are now. Houses are being built for the homeless. They will have to check if they have any dwellings and then they will be documented," he said.

At present state, it might come in the mind that the wealthy people prefer leading in glamorous, colorful Dhaka keeping the fate of the slum people unchanged ages to come. In contrary, one might dream equality in the society would be established as history made it possible when we look back the days of the rulers of Forbidden City is now a past.