Making Dhaka a liveable city

A survey of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a prestigious research wing of the London-based weekly Economist, has again described Dhaka as the most unliveable city in the world. Last year, the position went to Syria's capital Damascus.
The survey was based on crime incidents, threats, health service, censorship, communications system, temperature and education of the cities of the world. The EIU published 100 indicators where Dhaka's rating point is 38.7. Port Moresby city of Papua New Guinea secured second position with 38.9 points, Lagos city of Nigeria third with 39, Harare of Zimbabwe fourth with 39.4, Algiers of Algeria 5th with 40.9 points, Karachi city of Pakistan 6th with 40.9, Tripoli of Libya 7th with 42.8 points, Douala city of Cameroon 8th with 43.3 points, Tehran city of Iran in 9th with 45.8 points and Abidjan of Ivory Coast became10th with 45.9 points in the rating.
Indeed, Dhaka is set to become an unlivable city very soon unless a plan is immediately put in place to develop a smooth transport system and stop unplanned housing, said environmentalist groups. The city is beset with multiple problems. The common problems are traffic jam, load shedding, water and sanitation, air pollution, accommodation crisis of increasing population and many more. Most of them get media coverage from time to time. Regrettably, some get little attention when the problem is acute. Of them, accommodation problem has been severe over the past years as house rent has been doubled and in some cases tripled causing immense sufferings to the low and limited income people.
Despite development and other related issues taking the centre stage, the concern over demographic explosion appears to have receded to the background. But the air of nonchalance, notwithstanding, the population bomb, is ticking away all the same as before. The average rate of population growth in the city is now 3.0 per cent against 7.0 per cent growth in city slums. This is also contributing to 1.4 per cent average growth rate of population over the country. About 40 per cent of city-dwellers live in slums and the rate is expected to rise in the future.
City's environment is already threatened as a consequence of excessive population. Pollution is increasing and water supply and sanitation facilities in Dhaka might collapse under the relentless pressure of city-dwellers. If population growth continues unabated, a decade from now, it will be hard to walk on the city streets. The unhindered growth of population in Dhaka is set to increase social inequality significantly over the course of the next decade. It will bring about tremendous problems in areas of provision of basic services including heath, education and food.
Dhaka city has become one of the world's truly hopeless urban cases. Fleeing droughts, floods, and starvation, people have been streaming into the city from the countryside, making it distressingly sick. The capital city is now bursting with people of all categories looking for jobs. In recent times, agitation by garment workers, and traffic congestion at every road intersection brought the city to a standstill.
Apart from people living on jobs in government and private agencies, at least 2.0 million people working in different garment factories and other industries in and around the city find it extremely difficult to get a shelter in the confines of the city. The way low-income people live in slum areas of different parts of the city beggars description. Unhygienic condition leaves scores of them to suffer from many chronic diseases.
The situation in Dhaka city is becoming alarming day by day. Joblessness, oversized population, noxious emissions and toxic effluents from smoke-belching vehicles have made city life choking. Conscious citizenry have been focusing on human factors responsible for deterioration of environmental quality in the city life. These are: population growth incompatible with development of resources, lack of adequate environmental considerations, poor management of waste generated through the production-generation process.
Environmentalists have expressed concern about the environmental degradation of Dhaka city that evidently manifests its decline. Air pollution caused by vehicle emission, despite changeover to CNG-driven vehicles, is still the worst. Dhaka's sky is no longer blue, it is grey. Health experts claim that the air in the city will soon become impossible to breathe. Dhaka city dwellers are, thus, being subjected to slow murder.
One of the major threats to the city due to declining groundwater levels is land subsidence, which can be triggered by earthquakes of greater magnitudes. Recently, a series of earthquakes of magnitudes ranging from 4.0 to 5.2 on the Richter scale jolted Dhaka and other parts of the country. Although no damage to the infrastructure of the city was reported but there is a great potential of collapse of infrastructures and also of land subsidence associated with earthquakes, particularly in areas of greater groundwater-storage depletion.
Unless migration from the countryside is checked, Dhaka will turn into a city of ruins, where people will risk losing their living environment. Without strong political commitment, reform of any kind is, indeed, virtually impossible. A sustained awareness campaign through the media and public advocacy should be started to arrest the 'decline of Dhaka'.
Before the work for metro-rail gets started, the main task facing the relevant authorities is to build the already proposed link roads and by-pass roads. The major defect in the transport network is the absence of link roads between eastern and western part of Dhaka. The by-pass roads that are in the pipeline must be implemented very rapidly.
Only way to reverse the situation is to make outskirts of Dhaka and other towns the epicentres of growth, create employment opportunities by way of SMEs (small and medium enterprises), opening of educational institutions, healthcare facilities, entertainment outlets like parks, cultural rendezvous of different denominations, etc. Decentralisation of the administration, with self-contained zones of habitats so that people don't have to travel long distances, has been long overdue. Dhaka's civic governance should be radically improved by bringing the city under a unified authority.
szkhan@dhaka.net