Inequity in DAP

The Detailed Area Plan (DAP) for Dhaka that was announced recently by the government amid much funfare gives lip service to the poor through proposals for low-cost housing development. Nowhere are such plans spelt out in details, nor is there any credible assurance about availability of sufficient land for this purpose. As the days pass by, doubts do also mount about the possibility of implementing the DAP, at least in the foreseeable future. Many people have already been pointing out the programmes particularly for the poor are not meant to be implemented in the city. Instead, a plan is being dished out to relocate the majority of the 4.2 to 4.5 million slumdwellers to surrounding areas outside the central part of Dhaka City, with little access to work and other facilities. The magnitude of the inequity can easily be gauged from such a programme, as has been reported in a section of the media, to allocate 34 per cent of available space for 4.4 million upper-income people in the outskirts of Dhaka and only 0.3 per cent of space for 4.5 million low-income people. That is, the allocated space for low-cost housing development is less than one-hundredth (1.0 per cent) of the area provided for housing development. Is this "social justice", about which the authorities concerned are otherwise found to be vocal, every now and then? Asad Khan Dhaka