Making Dhaka livable has been the top priority of successive governments of Bangladesh over the decades. Since the independence, Dhaka has undergone several infrastructural developments, but 'Livable Dhaka' is still an enigma. This has been reflected in a recently-conducted survey as Dhaka was declared the city with worst living conditions among 140 other cities by the 'Economist Intelligence Unit's 2012 Global Livability Survey'.
Several mega infrastructural development projects are now being planned such as elevated expressway, metro rail, bus rapid transit etc. Many of the flyovers (Kuril, Mirpur-Banani, Jatrabari etc.) have also been completed with some of them at construction stage (Moghbazar). All these sound very resounding and it keeps alive the hope that the traffic congestion problem of Dhaka city will be eased after all. But will the reality be as bright as it seems or is it going to be just a dream? The right question is will the infrastructural development undertaken to accommodate the existing population in Dhaka city be successful? It must be understood that taking a long-term perspective is crucial in understanding the comprehensive scenario rather than considering the short run only. In this article, these writers will try to shed light on the matter incorporating the very famous Harris-Todarro model of rural-urban migration.
The basic premise of the model states, coexistence of a rural subsistence sector and a relatively more developed urban sector in a country makes rural-urban migration inevitable. To elaborate, wages paid by the rural jobs are subsistent and in contrast, the urban formal sector jobs offer a better wage to earn better livelihood which is enough an incentive for people to migrate from rural to urban areas. The problem arises when limited urban formal sector jobs fail to accommodate the total migrated people. They eventually end up in the 'urban informal sector' with a hope of someday cracking into the urban formal sector jobs. Since there is a probability of ending up in both formal and informal sectors, rural people take their migration decision based on expected wages to be received in the urban area. As long as this expected wage surpasses what they receive in rural areas, they keep on migrating. Mainly migration is considered as a response to the wage gap between the two sectors. This is very briefly the main idea of the model.
The resemblance of the model for Bangladesh is uncanny. The prevalence of the dualistic economy and discrimination among them is a core feature here. The jobs available in the rural areas are mostly directly or indirectly related to agriculture which more often than not is low paid. In addition, a few non-farm sector jobs are available but low payment prevails there as well. The low payment leads to poor livelihood which is accompanied by existing poor facilities (regarding education, healthcare etc.) in the rural areas, combination of which forces rural people to migrate mainly to Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet. But limited urban jobs fail to accommodate the migrants, forcing them to take up informal jobs as street hawkers, rickshaw- pullers, drivers, mechanics, maid servants etc. This process expands the informal sector which is least desired given that its constituents are responsible for most of the socio-economic problems created in the city areas.
An extension of the model puts up a paradoxical case regarding expansion of urban formal sector. If the government through some policy increases the number of formal jobs with a target of absorbing its informal counterpart, it will end up expanding the size of the informal sector. Because when the formal sector expands, the probability of getting formal jobs (which according to the model the rural people observe in taking migration decision) increases, encouraging more people to flow in. As a consequence, the informal sector expands further because the number of new migrants surpasses the jobs created. Kenya had similar experience from which this conclusion was derived.
Another point must be stressed along with the model to explain the potential failure of the infrastructural development of Dhaka city in achieving its targets. In general, the reasons for migration are categorised as push factors and pull factors. The factors that make rural inhabiting difficult or 'push people away' from the rural areas are push factors and the factors that make urban living lucrative or 'pull people towards' urban areas are pull factors. Without mitigating the push factors (i.e. generating work opportunities in rural areas) further improvement of the urban areas will make the pull factors stronger tempting more people to migrate to the city. For example, better transport and communication are likely to generate more employment through expansion of economic activities which can contribute to migration.
To sum up, if more investments are made to develop Dhaka city for capacitating its existing population, it will not sustain in the long run. Rural areas, being in the condition they are, the incentive for migrating to Dhaka will dominate and migration will take place overshooting the newly-built capacity. So in parallel to urban development, larger rural development must take place to ensure a more inclusive growth which will mitigate the impacts of the push factors from the source to prevent migration. This might make the dream of a 'Livable Dhaka' a reality.
A.N.M. Amin Ullah is Senior Executive Officer of Bank Asia Ltd. aminullah@bankasia.com.bd                         Syer Tazim Haque is Research Associate of Dhaka-based South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). syeroid88@yahoo.com
Miserable Dhaka: Road congestion and urban migration
A.N.M. Amin Ullah and Syer Tazim Haque | Published: November 02, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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