What about the right to housing of Dhaka's poor?
The Dhaka slums, inhabited by 6.33 percent of the urban population, occupy only 1 percent of the total city space. This congestion is rooted in sheer negligence of the government in recognising the urban poor’s right to the city
About 130 metres west of the busy Beribandh Tin Rastar Mor (an intersection of three arterial roads in the Basila area), the Chand Udyan Sona Miartek Basti (slum) stands on a low-lying 4.5-acre land.
The slum shelters around 700 families from the low-income bracket: rickshaw pullers, motor transport workers, day labourers, cleaners and housemaids. Because of cheaper accommodation (room rent starts from Tk800 per month), they live in this place that has only six pucca latrines for all dwellers, and there is no authorised utility connection.
There, a 27-year-old Mohammad Shaon with his wife Nasreen and their six-year-old son took shelter last year, migrating from Chorkaua of the coastal district Barishal, after their 0.1-acre homestead was completely eroded by the River Kirtankhola.
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Shaon now ekes out a living by paddling a rickshaw in Dhaka, like he used to do in Barishal city. His monthly income has increased. But his dwelling space is suffocating and completely different from his ancestral home. The rented room on a raised bamboo-made platform accommodates only a floor bed, a box for clothes and some utensils.
"I came here with an empty wallet. A shelter for my family was the priority and we got that here. Slum dwelling is uncomfortable, but this is the best accommodation I can afford," Shaon said.
In search of livelihood, approximately 1,000-2,000 people like Shaon migrate every day to Dhaka—the city contributes to one-fifth of the national GDP while offering one-third of all jobs. Due to the unabated migration of rural people, Bangladesh's capital city has transformed into a primate city for almost 44 percent of the country's urban population.
Overstressed, the city now fails to cope with the minimum living requirements of its low-income citizens, forcing the vulnerable groups to resort to the congested slums. The Dhaka slums, inhabited by 6.33 percent of the urban population, occupy only 1 percent of the total city space. This congestion is rooted in sheer negligence by the government to recognise the urban poor's right to the city.
"Regarding housing development, the government relies heavily on the private sector that never supports housing for the poor," said Dibalok Singha, chairperson of Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP).
Dibalok said the urban poor's housing right is a political issue; and no ruling political party could set up a successful housing project for slum dwellers in 51 years of Bangladesh's independence, exposing a discriminative society. The government meets only 7 percent of the annual housing demand - favouring the middle-and upper-income groups.
Living under unlivable conditions
Five years ago, middle-aged Noor Jahan accompanied her farmer husband Yunus to Kallyanpur Pora Basti in Dhaka from the coastal district Patuakhali. Although their home was not eroded, the family was compelled to migrate after being forced into huge debt due to crop losses for three consecutive seasons - a result of untimely rains and hailstorms.
All the family members are now involved in informal jobs: Yunus paddles a rickshaw, his son Rajib assists a human hauler, Noor Jahan and her daughter-in-law Surma serve as housemaids. Still, they live together in a single 10-by-8-foot shanty at the slum to save some money for loan repayment.
Noor Jahan's room has no ventilation. Only a tiny space exists for 2-3 people sitting face-to-face as a semi-double bed and a meat shelf occupy most of the room space. Like other slum dwellers, everyday they compete for a few shared toilets, bathrooms and water collection points.
Recently, Noor Jahan was preparing lunch at the three-foot-wide damp archway. Indoor air pollution seemed acute there. "Living in Dhaka city is unpleasant. But we cannot return to our village home unless the loan with interest is paid completely," Noor Jahan told The Business Standard.
The Kallyanpur Pora (burnt) Basti is called as such because fire had gutted the slum, partially or completely, eight to 10 times in the last 30 years. The latest inferno happened last year and damaged more than 300 rooms.
At least 3,031 families, living in 10 blocks on a 17-acre land of the state-owned House Building and Research Institute (HBRI), survive in constant fear of fire. The victims suspect a vested interest group (that wants to evict them from the state-owned land) was behind every fire incident. However, no state-sanctioned probe confirmed their suspicions.
"For work, we go outside this basti every day, leaving our elders and children in our one-roomed shelter. We cannot concentrate on our job properly," said Rawshan Ara, a community-based Organisation (CBO) organiser based in Kallyanpur Pora Basti.
A 2021 study identified livelihood conditions in the slum settings in Dhaka as substandard with limited household resources, public goods provisions and poor quality of civic amenities.
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology's (BUET) Department of Urban and Regional Planning (URP) presented a policy brief in 2022 and pointed out that the slums of Dhaka were situated mainly around hazardous industries, water bodies and garbage sites.
Denied right to housing
Shelter or housing is the constitutional right of the citizens of Bangladesh. The right to housing has been recognised further by the government's promises to many international conventions including the Covenant of Social, Economic and Cultural Right (ICSECR) and the United Nations (UN) Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlement (1996).
The National Housing Policy provides guidelines to ensure 'housing for all'. The crucial policy document blames organisational weakness and scarcity of resources in the prevailing housing financing system for keeping a large share of society out of institutional financing.
Defining the government's responsibilities regarding housing for the lower-middle income, lower-income, poorest and distressed population, the policy says, "...the government will play the role of provider. In such a context, it will try to recover the cost, or limit the cost, through cross-subsidy as far as possible."
However, an unpublished report titled On-Site Slum Upgradation of Dhaka Match Colony, Shyampur, by BUET's URP department found an absence of subsidiary financial plans for the urban poor.
The lone public housing finance entity, Bangladesh House Building Finance Corporation (BHBFC), plays a part in the country's housing crisis management. According to Bangladesh Bank, the total outstanding housing loans amounted to Tk1,058.94 billion as of the end June 2022, out of which, Tk39.3 billion was disbursed by BHBFC, while the rest by private-run housing finance companies, banks and other financial organisations.
BHBFC does not finance housing for the urban poor in Dhaka city [also in Chattogram and Sylhet Metropolitan cities]. Also, the private banks and housing finance companies offer no financing schemes for the poor.
Take the required documents for a loan application to the Delta Brac Housing Finance Corporation—the largest private-run housing finance company–for example. No slum dweller can submit their salary certificate, land ownership document and trade licence, which a financially-solvent person could.
"Practically, the urban poor's right to the city is deliberately ignored in the housing finance schemes," opined CUP chairperson Dibalok. He said the urban poor's land ownership issue could be addressed in line with the National Housing Policy that encourages community and cooperative-based voluntary housing programmes for slum dwellers.
On the contrary, the government involved private contractors, instead of community organisations, while building two housing projects: Bhasantek Rehabilitation Project and Rajuk's Uttara Apartment Project, for the Dhaka-based lower-income groups. The two projects deliberately failed to accommodate slum dwellers.
The private contractor North South Development Limited for the Bhasantek project sold apartments to financially solvent people rather than to the slum dwellers. No individual from the low-income group was found owning a flat under the Uttara project, a report of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division revealed in 2019.
The Bhashantek project was launched in 2003, evicting around 2,500 families from the Bhashantek Basti. None of the evicted families could own the flats. Still, there live around 400 families in makeshift cottages on the project premises.
Abul Hossain is among them. He witnessed firsthand how flats meant for slum dwellers were handed over to the solvent buyers.
The public-private project set a subsidised price of Tk1.9 lakh for a 215-sq ft flat. The beneficiaries were supposed to pay Tk10,000 down payment and Tk1,100 monthly instalments for a 10-year payback period.
"We could pay the money. But the local ward councillor (grassroots representative of voters) didn't certify us as slum dwellers. Our applications for the flats were rejected," Abul, a CBO leader, told The Business Standard.
In search of change
Despite the dismal situation, there are small rays of hope. The non-government Association for Realisation of Basic Needs (ARBAN) successfully implemented a housing project for urban poor in Mirpur, Dhaka. Under the project, 38 small-size flats were handed over to the beneficiaries in 2012.
In 1999, beneficiaries of ARBAN's education programme requested financial support for income generation. The ARBAN authority arrived at the conclusion that liveable housing would be a prerequisite for their good health and sustainable income generation.
Collecting a lump sum of Tk20,000 as initial deposits from each beneficiary, ARBAN purchased a piece of 0.1 acre land in Mirpur and constructed a multi-storey building within 10 years.
The successful initiative faced multiple challenges including delayed recovery of the construction costs.
"Many beneficiaries had already shifted to ready flats on humanitarian grounds, and then dilly-dallied in paying the instalments," recalled Mahbubur Rahman, project coordinator at ARBAN.
The lessons from the Mirpur project later forced ARBAN to revise its flexible policy. ARBAN's under-construction project of 90 low-cost flats in Dhaka's Rampura area will not be handed over until their prices are paid completely.
CUP chairperson Dibalok Singha believes that the government should shoulder the responsibility of minimising the risk factors when it comes to low-cost housing by ensuring sustainable employment of slum dwellers. At the same time, a housing finance savings scheme for them will be an effective instrument.
The Detailed Area Plan (DAP) 2022-2035 proposes at least 58 locations in greater Dhaka for housing facilities for the lower-income group. DAP project director and town planner at Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha, Md Ashraful Islam, while talking to The Business Standard, said he hoped that flats at subsidised prices would be built (for low-income people) in the specified locations in phases.
This story was supported by a Fellowship awarded by Question of Cities and Climate Action Network South Asia.
