Searching for solution to the planning problems of Dhaka city
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Md. Shohel Reza Amin
The government as well as planners, environmentalists and professionals deserve the applause for their persistent efforts in preparing the Detailed Area Plan (DAP), years after the drawing of Master Plan in 1991.
They are also encouraged to get the Prime Minister on their side in their efforts to implement the DAP for the planned development of Dhaka city. However, several questions are yet to be resolved. Will the DAP be implemented in time?
My trepidation comes from the malfunctioning of the previous plans for Dhaka city. For example, 1960 Master Plan for Dhaka city could not accurately envisage the population growth and consequently the housing demand. The plan forecast an increase of 400,000 populations and the demand for 50000 housing units in the Dhaka city during the subsequent 20 years, and according to a newspaper report, the figures actually turned to 3 million population and 3 million additional housing units. Besides, several other plans were initiated to regulate land use and land development of Dhaka city such as Dhaka Metropolitan Area Integrated Urban Development Plan (DMAIUDP) 1981, Dhaka Integrated Flood Protection Project (FAP 8A and 8B), and Report of the taskforce on Bangladesh development strategies for 1990s. DMAIUDP proposed the expansion of Dhaka city at north side in order to shelter projected 9 million people by the year 2000. FAP 8A proposed an area of 453 sq. Km for drainage & flood protection and optimistic that the eastern bypass would improve the drainage problem of the eastern Dhaka. The taskforce report proposed the establishment of new satellite towns and the speedy growth of existing satellite towns in order to confine Dhaka's population within a quarter of national urban population. Nevertheless, the achievement of these plans and strategies are still very remote.
The trajectory of unplanned expansion of Dhaka city ensconces some intermingled issues and we have to resolve these concurrently in order to make the Dhaka city liveable. Otherwise, the burgeoning debates among different stakeholders on Dhaka city's planning will never end rather will be further convoluted and insurmountable to resolve. Similar situation is observed in case of Detailed Area Plan of Dhaka city, a dispute between the market vs command and control based development. On the one hand, the real estate developers have abided against the DAP as they invested Tk 700 billion in this sector and a large number of people are involved in the process. On the other hand, environmentalists, planners and government are adamant at their positions for the sake of sustainable development of Dhaka city. The state minister of housing and public works warned: "If we fail to implement the plan, Dhaka will gradually go under water... Let's not endanger Dhaka". Even the Prime Minister said, "No concession will be made to anyone in this regard... We will implement the detailed area plan to save Dhaka city. We do not care if it inconveniences anyone. We cannot cater to a few greedy persons".
Are the planning controls sufficient enough to confine the urban sprawl or to control the conversion of agricultural and wetlands on the periphery of Dhaka city? The answer of this question embeds in the fundamental demand-supply equilibrium. We have to incorporate the market demand of land into planning policies and strategies. Otherwise like the Dutch National Urbanization Policy the success of DAP (expecting the nippy implementation) will be far-far away. We cannot restrain the unprecedented expansion of Dhaka until the demand for land exceeds the supply. The real estate developers or land grabbers are nothing but the mediators for fulfilling the demand for land and property. Hastily and indubitably we make the Dhaka city as a hunting zone for them. This is why, the ultimate impacts of forcefully confining Dhaka city may cause further disaster. Why? Land and property values as well as structural density in the inner Dhaka city will increase, which will result in further expansion of existing properties and filling of remaining open spaces and water bodies within the city. Furthermore, this will boost settlement and housing projects within the close proximity of Dhaka city. This scenario one can notice in Narayanganj, Comilla, Gazipur and Mymensingh. For example, Rupayan Town project at Bhuigar off the Dhaka-Narayanganj link road; Concord Group housing project on Dhaka-Chittagong highway and on the bank of the Brahmaputra River; Bangladesh Development Company Ltd projects at Narayanganj and Gazipur; Artisan Apartments Ltd. project at Comilla and so on.
Therefore, before going into details of supply and demand side we have to comprehend the persuasive actors of this unprecedented demand for land in Dhaka city.
From the British colonial time, Dhaka was the economic hub of East Bengal, but it attained the rapid pace of development after becoming the capital city of the then East Pakistan. And after the independence of Bangladesh, Dhaka turned into the focal point of all economic, administrative, cultural and commercial activities. Consequently urban built-up areas are increasing at a faster rate, while wetlands and water bodies are declining simultaneously. During the period of 1961-81, 1981-91, 1991 and until now, the urban area of Dhaka city has increased 726.57 percent, 20.98 percent and 68.57 percent respectively while wetlands decreased from 13514 ha in 1960 to 7128 ha in 2008, according to newspaper reports.
As a nucleus of all activities, Dhaka has attracted massive migration of labourers from different parts of Bangladesh. During the period of 1996-2000, the labour force of Dhaka city has increased by 15 percent compared with 7 percent growth for the country. Labour Force Survey Report (2000) has estimated that Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area (SMA) had 3.5 million labour force that stand for 59 percent of the total working age population in the city (10 years and above). World Bank has calculated that wages are approximately 40 percent higher in Dhaka and net self employment incomes are approximately 21 percent higher. This huge gap of wages, employment and even self-employment income persuade the influx of educated labours in Dhaka city.
Demand for land and apartments is further augmented by capital injection by commercial banks as housing loan schemes. The bank's outstanding home loans have doubled to Tk 123.6 billion in fiscal year 2009 from Tk 64 billion in the fiscal year 2006 as this sector seems to be secured. According to Bangladesh Bank statistics, housing loans increased to Tk 181.8 billion at the end of fiscal year 2009 from Tk 100.9 billion in the fiscal year 2006. The lion's share of this money injection in the real estate market for the potential buyers, especially the middle income groups, is from private banks. During the fiscal year 2009, the private bank's outstanding housing loan was Tk 74.9 billion, which was Tk 35.1 billion three years ago. This results in 113 percent increase of capital injection in housing sector by the private banks during the last three years. Bangladesh Bank does not lag behind in this competition. In July 2007, Bangladesh Bank launched Tk 3 billion refinancing scheme for housing for three years for lower and middle class people, who are entitled to maximum Tk 2 million loans at 10 percent interest, which is repayable in highest 20 years with one year grace period. In 2008 and 2009, Bangladesh Bank injected Tk 4 billion as a housing scheme. Demand for home loan is increasing is currently about TK 15 billion, which is an increase of over 20 percent each year.
In order to meet the demand, different government bodies, along with the real estate developers, have drawn up their own strategies ignoring the integrated planning approach. For example, Rajuk has filled up a portion of the Shitalakhya River along the bank at Rupganj in Narayanganj for its Purbachal New Town Project. Rajuk started the Purbachal New Town Project in July 1995 and is supposed to finish it in 2012 by filling up 6150 acres of lowland and wetland, according to newspaper reports.
The reports said Public Works Department (PWD) will build 4256 flats at Mohakhali and Mirpur areas by 2011 for the government officials. The Mohakhali project area occupies around 20 acres of Banani Lake.
Even during the caretaker government in 2008, the Nagar Unnayan Committee (NUC) of the housing and public works ministry proposed a three-phase and 17-year long housing proposal for slum dwellers, low income, middle income and upper income groups. In the first phase (2008-2013), the NUC proposed to construct 109200 shelter units for squatters at government land at Mirpur, Rayerbazar, Kalyanpur and Kuril areas. In the second phase (2013-2018), 310800 housing units in Uttara phase III, Purbachal, Tongi, Gazipur, Narayanganj, keraniganj, Demra and Savar. In the third phase (2018-2025), 1100000 housing units for the middle income groups in Rajuk-developed existing housing areas and at new satellite towns - Jhilmil, Purbachal, Ashuliya and Uttara Phase III. The NUC also proposed to construct 80000 units for the upper income group in the outlying areas of Dhaka metropolitan area, the newspaper reports said.
I don't want to blame these public bodies as well as real estate developers because they are all making efforts to meet the rising demand for housing. Therefore, implementation of DAP will be worthless unless the trajectory planning problems of Dhaka city can be resolved. The question arises: what are the appropriate strategies and polices? The strategies have to deal with both demand and supply sides of land concurrently in order to ensure demand-supply equilibrium. This can be achieved by reduction of demand for land leaving the supply of land economically constant. How?
The demand for land or housing in the Dhaka can be reduced by decentralizing all economic, administrative, commercial and educational activities to different regions of Bangladesh. Environmentalists, planners, bureaucrats, policy makers and even media are highly concerned about the planning issues of Dhaka city.
On the other hand, the supply of land in Dhaka Metropolitan Area for urban uses can be fixed through market based approach rather than command and controlled based approach. The second approach is always questionable and difficult to implement.
The land market instrument can be a suitable solution to fix the supply of land for urban uses. The government can develop price index for the wetlands and agricultural lands at the periphery of Dhaka city by incorporating the values of tangible and intangible attributes of these lands such as national demand-supply equilibrium of long-term agricultural production for ensuring food security, land ownership pattern, resident's utility, physical attributes, buyer and seller socio-economic characteristics, environmental characteristics, landscape indices and ecology.
It can be said that DAP should be implemented within the shortest possible time because 'something is better than nothing'. But we should not be complacent with the implementation of DAP rather we should understand and deal with the embedded planning problems of Dhaka city.
The writer, a Jahangirnagar University teacher, is doing PhD at the University Ulster, U.K. He can be reached at
e-mail :
Amin-MSR@email.ulster.ac.uk
The government as well as planners, environmentalists and professionals deserve the applause for their persistent efforts in preparing the Detailed Area Plan (DAP), years after the drawing of Master Plan in 1991.
They are also encouraged to get the Prime Minister on their side in their efforts to implement the DAP for the planned development of Dhaka city. However, several questions are yet to be resolved. Will the DAP be implemented in time?
My trepidation comes from the malfunctioning of the previous plans for Dhaka city. For example, 1960 Master Plan for Dhaka city could not accurately envisage the population growth and consequently the housing demand. The plan forecast an increase of 400,000 populations and the demand for 50000 housing units in the Dhaka city during the subsequent 20 years, and according to a newspaper report, the figures actually turned to 3 million population and 3 million additional housing units. Besides, several other plans were initiated to regulate land use and land development of Dhaka city such as Dhaka Metropolitan Area Integrated Urban Development Plan (DMAIUDP) 1981, Dhaka Integrated Flood Protection Project (FAP 8A and 8B), and Report of the taskforce on Bangladesh development strategies for 1990s. DMAIUDP proposed the expansion of Dhaka city at north side in order to shelter projected 9 million people by the year 2000. FAP 8A proposed an area of 453 sq. Km for drainage & flood protection and optimistic that the eastern bypass would improve the drainage problem of the eastern Dhaka. The taskforce report proposed the establishment of new satellite towns and the speedy growth of existing satellite towns in order to confine Dhaka's population within a quarter of national urban population. Nevertheless, the achievement of these plans and strategies are still very remote.
The trajectory of unplanned expansion of Dhaka city ensconces some intermingled issues and we have to resolve these concurrently in order to make the Dhaka city liveable. Otherwise, the burgeoning debates among different stakeholders on Dhaka city's planning will never end rather will be further convoluted and insurmountable to resolve. Similar situation is observed in case of Detailed Area Plan of Dhaka city, a dispute between the market vs command and control based development. On the one hand, the real estate developers have abided against the DAP as they invested Tk 700 billion in this sector and a large number of people are involved in the process. On the other hand, environmentalists, planners and government are adamant at their positions for the sake of sustainable development of Dhaka city. The state minister of housing and public works warned: "If we fail to implement the plan, Dhaka will gradually go under water... Let's not endanger Dhaka". Even the Prime Minister said, "No concession will be made to anyone in this regard... We will implement the detailed area plan to save Dhaka city. We do not care if it inconveniences anyone. We cannot cater to a few greedy persons".
Are the planning controls sufficient enough to confine the urban sprawl or to control the conversion of agricultural and wetlands on the periphery of Dhaka city? The answer of this question embeds in the fundamental demand-supply equilibrium. We have to incorporate the market demand of land into planning policies and strategies. Otherwise like the Dutch National Urbanization Policy the success of DAP (expecting the nippy implementation) will be far-far away. We cannot restrain the unprecedented expansion of Dhaka until the demand for land exceeds the supply. The real estate developers or land grabbers are nothing but the mediators for fulfilling the demand for land and property. Hastily and indubitably we make the Dhaka city as a hunting zone for them. This is why, the ultimate impacts of forcefully confining Dhaka city may cause further disaster. Why? Land and property values as well as structural density in the inner Dhaka city will increase, which will result in further expansion of existing properties and filling of remaining open spaces and water bodies within the city. Furthermore, this will boost settlement and housing projects within the close proximity of Dhaka city. This scenario one can notice in Narayanganj, Comilla, Gazipur and Mymensingh. For example, Rupayan Town project at Bhuigar off the Dhaka-Narayanganj link road; Concord Group housing project on Dhaka-Chittagong highway and on the bank of the Brahmaputra River; Bangladesh Development Company Ltd projects at Narayanganj and Gazipur; Artisan Apartments Ltd. project at Comilla and so on.
Therefore, before going into details of supply and demand side we have to comprehend the persuasive actors of this unprecedented demand for land in Dhaka city.
From the British colonial time, Dhaka was the economic hub of East Bengal, but it attained the rapid pace of development after becoming the capital city of the then East Pakistan. And after the independence of Bangladesh, Dhaka turned into the focal point of all economic, administrative, cultural and commercial activities. Consequently urban built-up areas are increasing at a faster rate, while wetlands and water bodies are declining simultaneously. During the period of 1961-81, 1981-91, 1991 and until now, the urban area of Dhaka city has increased 726.57 percent, 20.98 percent and 68.57 percent respectively while wetlands decreased from 13514 ha in 1960 to 7128 ha in 2008, according to newspaper reports.
As a nucleus of all activities, Dhaka has attracted massive migration of labourers from different parts of Bangladesh. During the period of 1996-2000, the labour force of Dhaka city has increased by 15 percent compared with 7 percent growth for the country. Labour Force Survey Report (2000) has estimated that Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area (SMA) had 3.5 million labour force that stand for 59 percent of the total working age population in the city (10 years and above). World Bank has calculated that wages are approximately 40 percent higher in Dhaka and net self employment incomes are approximately 21 percent higher. This huge gap of wages, employment and even self-employment income persuade the influx of educated labours in Dhaka city.
Demand for land and apartments is further augmented by capital injection by commercial banks as housing loan schemes. The bank's outstanding home loans have doubled to Tk 123.6 billion in fiscal year 2009 from Tk 64 billion in the fiscal year 2006 as this sector seems to be secured. According to Bangladesh Bank statistics, housing loans increased to Tk 181.8 billion at the end of fiscal year 2009 from Tk 100.9 billion in the fiscal year 2006. The lion's share of this money injection in the real estate market for the potential buyers, especially the middle income groups, is from private banks. During the fiscal year 2009, the private bank's outstanding housing loan was Tk 74.9 billion, which was Tk 35.1 billion three years ago. This results in 113 percent increase of capital injection in housing sector by the private banks during the last three years. Bangladesh Bank does not lag behind in this competition. In July 2007, Bangladesh Bank launched Tk 3 billion refinancing scheme for housing for three years for lower and middle class people, who are entitled to maximum Tk 2 million loans at 10 percent interest, which is repayable in highest 20 years with one year grace period. In 2008 and 2009, Bangladesh Bank injected Tk 4 billion as a housing scheme. Demand for home loan is increasing is currently about TK 15 billion, which is an increase of over 20 percent each year.
In order to meet the demand, different government bodies, along with the real estate developers, have drawn up their own strategies ignoring the integrated planning approach. For example, Rajuk has filled up a portion of the Shitalakhya River along the bank at Rupganj in Narayanganj for its Purbachal New Town Project. Rajuk started the Purbachal New Town Project in July 1995 and is supposed to finish it in 2012 by filling up 6150 acres of lowland and wetland, according to newspaper reports.
The reports said Public Works Department (PWD) will build 4256 flats at Mohakhali and Mirpur areas by 2011 for the government officials. The Mohakhali project area occupies around 20 acres of Banani Lake.
Even during the caretaker government in 2008, the Nagar Unnayan Committee (NUC) of the housing and public works ministry proposed a three-phase and 17-year long housing proposal for slum dwellers, low income, middle income and upper income groups. In the first phase (2008-2013), the NUC proposed to construct 109200 shelter units for squatters at government land at Mirpur, Rayerbazar, Kalyanpur and Kuril areas. In the second phase (2013-2018), 310800 housing units in Uttara phase III, Purbachal, Tongi, Gazipur, Narayanganj, keraniganj, Demra and Savar. In the third phase (2018-2025), 1100000 housing units for the middle income groups in Rajuk-developed existing housing areas and at new satellite towns - Jhilmil, Purbachal, Ashuliya and Uttara Phase III. The NUC also proposed to construct 80000 units for the upper income group in the outlying areas of Dhaka metropolitan area, the newspaper reports said.
I don't want to blame these public bodies as well as real estate developers because they are all making efforts to meet the rising demand for housing. Therefore, implementation of DAP will be worthless unless the trajectory planning problems of Dhaka city can be resolved. The question arises: what are the appropriate strategies and polices? The strategies have to deal with both demand and supply sides of land concurrently in order to ensure demand-supply equilibrium. This can be achieved by reduction of demand for land leaving the supply of land economically constant. How?
The demand for land or housing in the Dhaka can be reduced by decentralizing all economic, administrative, commercial and educational activities to different regions of Bangladesh. Environmentalists, planners, bureaucrats, policy makers and even media are highly concerned about the planning issues of Dhaka city.
On the other hand, the supply of land in Dhaka Metropolitan Area for urban uses can be fixed through market based approach rather than command and controlled based approach. The second approach is always questionable and difficult to implement.
The land market instrument can be a suitable solution to fix the supply of land for urban uses. The government can develop price index for the wetlands and agricultural lands at the periphery of Dhaka city by incorporating the values of tangible and intangible attributes of these lands such as national demand-supply equilibrium of long-term agricultural production for ensuring food security, land ownership pattern, resident's utility, physical attributes, buyer and seller socio-economic characteristics, environmental characteristics, landscape indices and ecology.
It can be said that DAP should be implemented within the shortest possible time because 'something is better than nothing'. But we should not be complacent with the implementation of DAP rather we should understand and deal with the embedded planning problems of Dhaka city.
The writer, a Jahangirnagar University teacher, is doing PhD at the University Ulster, U.K. He can be reached at
e-mail :
Amin-MSR@email.ulster.ac.uk