All roads now lead to Dhaka. Thousands, even from other divisional, district and upazila headquarters, rush to the capital in search of a ‘decent’ living as they don’t find any there. Just think of the poor who also take a bus or train or launch journey to the mega city, already dubbed one of the worst in the world. The capital has become so crowded that it is no more worth living in.
And the internal migrants land in their ‘dream city’ only to be frustrated. They face difficulties on all fronts — ranging from accommodation to civic amenities the urban authorities are not properly prepared for or are simply unable to address. Dhaka now has to bear the brunt of mass exodus of internal migrants.
Just have a look at wayside shanties. Having no electricity or toilets, hundreds just spend the nights there. They live under street lights and respond to nature’s call either on footpaths or in bushes nearby. Other cities and towns hardly have anything for them.
Rickshaw-pullers on Dhaka’s streets can say why they are here. One will definitely see them coming from divisional, district and upazila towns, from far-away villages of southwestern or northern districts. They do not find any vocations that could provide them two meals a day there.
What’s happening to Dhaka city? Areas, marked ‘residential’ by the Rajdhani Unnayan Katripakkha (Rajuk), have now turned out to be busy commercial centres under its very nose. These commercial centres are being run by politically powerful and wealthy people. How could the Rajuk allow such business centres to grow in these areas, flouting all rules?
Just go to Dhanmondi, the ‘residential area’ as it is called even today. It has schools, colleges, universities, tailoring shops, food shops, hospitals, doctors’ chambers, tea-shops, restaurants, shopping centres and what not.
Gulshan equally gives a pathetic look. Now one can see residential areas just north of Gulshan 2 but the areas between Gulshan 1 and 2 have become commercial centres. This writer was once scared to travel by rickshaw alone in 1970s in those areas as he could see only green trees everywhere with rare sight of human beings. There was ghostly silence everywhere. But now, it takes more than an hour’s time to go from one place to another within Gulshan.
Countless slums have cropped up in the capital city. Even multi-storied buildings in Dhanmondi, Mohammadpur and other areas built for residential purposes are being re-arranged inside to turn those into mini shops or coaching centres or accommodate a family of three in one room. Even such a room is being sub-let in some areas.
But can Dhaka accommodate all the internal migrants of the country without other cities and towns providing income-generating activities? Can metro rail or fly-overs ease intolerable traffic jams in the capital? One can now see even some flyovers jammed by traffic these days.
The Dhaka-based Research Initiative for Social Equity (RISE) in a study observed: “If one expands the universe to the poorer, developing countries, Hong Kong barely holds a candle to Dhaka. Dhaka’s 14.6 million people live in just 815.8 square kilometres.”
None of the world’s mega cities comes close to Dhaka’s population density. Mumbai is about one-third less dense despite its reputation as crowded and congested. The only other mega city (minimum 10 million population) more than one-third as dense as Dhaka is Karachi. Twenty three other mega cities fall at least two-thirds short of Dhaka’s density (such as Jakarta, Seoul and Paris). New York’s core, Manhattan, is 40 per cent less dense, and the New York urban area does not reach 1/20th of Dhaka’s density.
If seriously pondered over, all the ad-hoc arrangements are destined to fail in providing relief to tired citizens of Dhaka unless the entire national administrative set-up is decentralised. Other cities and towns need to have their share of the power centres so that the people go there to taste its spill-over effects.
How can metro rail ease traffic situation? The trains will move in the same limited area of the capital. Buses and cars will also be there on the same area of the city. Even a three-storied flyover will be useless unless the capital city is expanded vertically. But what for? Mere expansion will not do; power centres also need to be decentralised at least to the district and divisional headquarters so that a reverse exodus of migrants from Dhaka takes place.
It is time to deal with the issue of urbanisation with utmost seriousness and on an emergency basis; an ‘urban disaster’ is already looming large. A national policy, guided by senior urban planners, brooks no delay. Prof Mujibur Rahman of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), estimated that 1.5 million cubic metres of the capital's sewage are going untreated right into the water bodies through storm sewers every day. Over 80 per cent of the area is not under any sewer network; the sole sewage treatment plant in Pagla is functioning at one third of its capacity.
In a paper, Dean of Architecture and Planning of the BUET Dr Sarwar Jahan said almost 55 per cent of the country’s total urban population is concentrated in four metropolitan cities Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Sylhet. "People think that stopping rural people's onrush to urban areas is the only solution to urban problems. But the rate of urbanisation is positively related to pace of development," he added.
Citing studies, he said productivity of urban people is much higher than the rural people. If the pace of development is high, so would be the rate of urbanisation, he added. Dr Sarwar said the rate of urbanisation in Bangladesh was 8.21 per cent in 1974 and this rate is now approximately 26 per cent. Since most of the services are Dhaka-centric, people from remote areas rush towards the capital. But this onrush cannot be stopped forcefully, he said.
If the government and other agencies can reach their services to remote areas, people's demand would be met and consequently migration from remote areas to metropolitan areas would be reduced, the expert opined. He suggested the government to encourage urbanisation by setting up centres at upazila, district, region and metropolitan areas and ensure availability of government and non-government services there. Besides, the budgetary funds under the government's annual development programme should also be allocated evenly so that people living outside the metropolitan areas get their benefits.
arjayster@gmail.com
Defusing a potential urban ‘disaster’
Rahman Jahangir | Published: May 23, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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