Growing slums of Dhaka

Another recent important report, Strategic Transport Plan (STP), Dhaka 2004- 2024, projects a population of DMA at 19 million, while that of Greater Dhaka Area (including Naryanganj, Savar, Tongi and Gazipur) at 24 million in 2024. This implies that at the current rate of growth the slum population of Dhaka will exceed 8 million. It will comprise at least 44 percent of the DMA population. This is in line with the growth and slum population projection I made in 1999 (Thinking Rehabilitation Rationally, DHAKA CITY: A SUSTAINABLE SLUM REHABILITATION PROGRAM The Daily Star, Sept. 17, 1999, Tanwir Nawaz).

I estimated a slum population of 8.0 million out of 21 million in 2020 in the greater DMDP (Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan 1995-2015) (1560 km.2). The current estimate seems to exceed that in the DMA (360 km2).

No matter what, the trend is very clear that the population and the percentage of slum population in Dhaka Metropolitan Area ( DMA) is growing much faster than the overall population and will continue to be in the foreseeable future.. While DMA or the Greater Dhaka Area or the STP Area will be a huge Mega city in the range of 25 million the slum population in this area will exceed 10 million. Funnily enough, this slum population will be settled in 4 percent to 5 percent of the STP land only. The current densities are as reported in the CUS report in the range of 820 persons per acre as against city density of 66 persons per acre in general. By 2024 or earlier the slum densities will have to be in the range of more than 2000 per acre. Currently almost all slums are single storied. It will be nearly impossible to increase density of habitation on single storey structures. In future, the slums will have to be in multistoried structures.

Why do people come to Dhaka and other cities in Bangladesh? Bangladesh is urbanising fast. People are moving to places where there are or perceived to be jobs and opportunities. The cities are the new centres of jobs and opportunities. The bigger the centre, the stronger is the pull. Dhaka is the Primate City in Bangladesh accounting for over 30 percent of the total GDP. It is pulling rural migrants faster and larger than any other cities in Bangladesh. But the trend is there in Chittagong, Khulna and other centers as well.

Locations and tenure
Until the early nineteen nineties, majority of the slums were located on public lands. The percentages of slums on private lands were less. Things began to change in the nineties. The government started to evict many slums from public properties. Open private lands were still available. Private land owners started to rent out the lands to slum dwellers as the return on these lands were handsome because of extreme high densities. Thus to day in 2006, 77 percent of slums are on private lands. Most of these slums are in the inner city, close to places of work. However, I predict that this situation will change rather rapidly. The price of land in the inner city is rising much faster than outer and fringe areas. Private land owners like the private builders are only concerned with profits and returns. The day it will be more profitable to develop than to rent out, the private land owners will start eviction. With rapid and faster increase in the prices of inner city lands, the day is not far off when we will begin to see evictions of and arsons in slums on private lands.

As more controlling and affluent sections of the society we have turned a blind eye to the coming problem. Nobody really wants to do anything meaningful. The civil society is too busy with other issues. The environmentalists are busy with something else.

The government has higher priorities. So, in future where will these slum people go? The obvious answer is to more fringe areas under new private lands, mostly to the east of the current city, up to the Balu River, the day the river embankments are built. Some will also move to the fringes of the burgeoning industrial areas of Savar and Tongi.

The slum dwellers do not have tenure. They do not own the land they live on. The government does not have a policy of helping with land tenure for slum dwellers. Tenure and ownerships are directed only at the more affluent portions of the city population. Private builders only build for profit and have not catered to this huge and burgeoning part of the population. They will not do so in the future unless there is profit in it for them.

Yet, without tenure and ownership, the slum population will be transitory, moving from one area to other every five, ten or fifteen years. Without, tenure, slum dwellers do not get development assistance, as no agency seems to invest in physical infrastructures that may be removed in short future.

Yet again, this need not be so. As I stated in my 1999 paper on slum rehabilitation with tenure, there are ways to make slum people rehabilitated and given tenure. Before I explain again how this can be achieved, let me state some of the reasons why tenure or ownership is important. I quote from my earlier article (Sept.17.1999 ) in The Daily Star the benefits of Tenure and Relocation and Rehabilitation Programme.

"Benefits of relocation and rehabilitation programme
Potential comprehensive relocation of the existing slums will bring huge benefit to the City as a whole and improve the living and the urban environment immensely.

• Rehabilitation of slum dwellers in new settlements will allow for better governance.
• Urban land management of the city will be much more feasible under the new plans.
• Proper open space planning and environmental management and sustainable developments of the City would become feasible.
• In the new settlements the allocated slum dwellers will have legal tenure of land and thereby benefit from future development programmes.
• NGOs and other donor and assisting agencies can provide financial and other help knowing that the residents have security of tenure.
• The current existing land occupied by the slums will be cleared and returned to the private and public owners in phases.
• The residents will be legal owners of the property, and will have a stake in its development. The money paid towards amortisation will go towards their legal ownership of the property. Therefore, they will have a stake in its development.
• The government will benefit from the utility services being provided to the residents, as the money now paid will go to the government treasury instead of being illegally siphoned by the criminal elements.
• Provisions for various slum's either by the public sector or NGO's would be eminently feasible.
• Health care and reproductive system training and facilities easier provided.
• Education and vocational training.
• Small commercial enterprises.
• The residents being the legal owners will not allow unauthorised miscreants to prey upon them.
• The illegal dealings in drugs and prostitution etc will decrease dramatically because of pride and security of legal ownership.
• Community building will become feasible. Currently there is no community in the slums. People live in fear of eviction, of criminals, rent seekers and other miscreants. It will be possible for them to live in the knowledge of security and the protection of the law of the land".

Let me explain how land tenure can be achieved by slum dwellers. When public agencies like RAJUK develop land, they make a reasonable profit. That is why they are more interested in land development than planning and development controls. When this developed land is passed on to private hands in lease the allotees gain a huge wind fall as they buy the land at less than market prices. When these allotees then hand over the land to the builders and developers, then again both the allotees and developers make wind fall profits. The basic idea is to catch a part of these publicly generated wind fall profits and pass it on to the slum dwellers for them to have ownership and tenure.

The way to do it will be when RAJUK or other developing public agencies develop land for lease, they will retain at least one third of the land for development from leasing to general public. Also, to recoup the cost of one third retained land, the development agencies will sell the two third part of the land at fifty percent higher prices (say at Tk 3.0 lakh per katha (1.65 decimals) instead of Tk 2.0 lakh). This will allow the public development agency to pass on this one third part of the developed land to Slum Cooperatives (and not to individuals) for development at nominal costs under closely stipulated conditions. With this newly allotted land as collateral the Slum Cooperatives will then be able to develop and allocate new housing to their shareholders on long term tenure or rental basis.

I have worked out definitive schemes that will allow a family of six-person household size to own a walk up apartment of 400 sqft and pay off the mortgages in fifteen years with no more than Tk 1500 per month. This is within range of 30 percent of slum dwellers to day. With rising income this will be more and more feasible in the future. But somebody has to take the lead. No body I know is doing it now.

In conclusion I do not see the growth of slums in large developing cities in a negative way. People are moving to the cities in search of jobs and opportunities and this indirectly testifies to the vitalities of growing large cities. These people provide vital services to the economic and urban life of the city and the nation. We must find ways that their lives can be made more meaningful and they also will have hopes and means of advancing to the mainstream.

Tanwir Nawaz is an architect and urbanist. Contact for Mr. Nawaz uhl@aitlbd.net