Now that the rural-to-urban migration has become a governance issue, one or two pilot projects will not solve the huge problem facing cities like Dhaka and Chittagong. All ministries and divisions are now crowded in Dhaka city. Many affiliated offices naturally have sprung up in this city to cater to the needs of such ministries and divisions. As a result, families of officials and employees of such offices have to crowd the capital for obvious reasons. Schools and colleges, hospitals and clinics have been set up to meet their growing needs in a haphazard manner and those still remain awfully inadequate for the overcrowded capital city.
Against this backdrop, the government is now set to undertake a pilot project that aims at reducing the influx of rural people in heavily congested big cities. The World Bank, according to a report, will give US$ 80 million to implement what is entitled as 'Pro-poor Slum Integration Project -- Our Home Our Way' in the country's five city corporations and municipalities. The project, as the officials explained the other day, will be launched in a participatory manner, primarily to provide housing facilities to 7,500 families. Its overall objective is focused on improving the conditions of living in informal settlements in the country's few selected municipalities.
Pilot projects like the latest one, however, are not anew. Similar ones were undertaken in the past, too, under different names. But the influx of the rural population into the 'urban' localities is still continuing at a worrying pace. There has yet been no proper study to identify the reasons for failures of earlier projects to click. Such reasons, however, are not far to seek. First of all, the projects were taken up on an ad-hoc basis with no innovative approach. Mere housing can in no way stem the tide of rural-to-urban migration. Because those who migrate to urban centres like Dhaka have their own houses in a village. Earning a livelihood is the key factor that has triggered such a migration. Sadly, no government in power in the country has ever sincerely looked into this critical issue. It is critical because the country's cities, particularly Dhaka, have become quite unliveable with the passage of time.
The migration of rural population will, in all likelihood, continue in an unabated manner, if employment-creating and income-generating opportunities as well as other related facilities for proper habitation are not adequately created in the countryside. For all practical purposes, cities like Dhaka do still offer some kind of livelihoods to the migrants to live with the barest minimum, forgetting the urban comforts. The plight of the hapless migrants in major urban areas is illustrated well by the findings of a recent survey. It cites, for an example, the miserable plight of most of the rickshaw-pullers who have migrated to the capital city from the poverty-stricken far-off southern and northern districts, finding no alternative means of livelihood in their home districts. And they have to live in slums in Dhaka and a few other large cities. With their further exodus from the rural areas, the urban slums will continue to multiply in number.
In this context, the need for ensuring effective spatial dispersal of economic activities, development devolution and massive decentralisation can hardly be overstressed. Otherwise, it will be well-nigh impossible to stem the rot. Districts and upazilas have to be turned into effective growth centres to put a brake on exodus of rural population to the country's few large cities. No time should therefore be lost in taking up the issue to stop further migration of rural people to such cities.
