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Dhaka was established by the Mughals beside the river Burihanga about four hundred years ago. That tiny Dhaka gradually expanded and now earned the title of "mega city". In the succeeding years it attracted travellers and trade enthusiasts from as far as Europe, West Asia, China and Far East. Lastly the British came and settled well before the beginning of their rule - about 200 years in all. Since then, Dhaka grew in size and the population went through an obvious and natural agglomeration. After partition in 1947 Dhaka became the capital of the than East Pakistan and after 1971 it turned into the capital of a sovereign country - the Bangladesh.
Dhaka is expected to be a city of over 20 million people by the year 2015. It will be one of the densely populated cities in the world. Dhaka has already earned fame for over-population, insufficient infrastructure and increasing civic anomalies.
The size of the city has grown rapidly during two decades. Though the city corporation has an area of 360 square kilometres, the city has gone far beyond this fence. Today, the metropolitan area of Dhaka city is of 1526 square kilometres encompassing Tongi, part of Gazipur, Savar, Keraniganj and Narayanganj.
Already a city of over 10 million population Dhaka is the centre of all economic and business activities attracting migration of people from across the country. The enormous opportunities created because of administrative and economic developments in this city over the years have propelled an unabated rise of migration of people from the rural areas. As these developments have not been in congruence with the existing physical facilities, there has not been a rapid increase in the density of dwellers but a mammoth urbanisation beyond the core area of the metropolis too. Bangladesh has a trend of high concentration of population in urban areas and one-third of its 36 per cent urban population live in Dhaka. Consequently, one of the crying problems of Dhaka city is its slum population.
Like all big cities in the world one of the biggest problem of Dhaka city is housing sector. The situation in Dhaka is beyond any agreeable understanding as improper housing has caused enormous ancillary problems too. The concept of multi-storied apartment complexes became popular in the eighties and resorted to mushroom growth later. However this has many other aspects too. Since there has not been any corresponding development of basic infrastructure like the network, sanitation, electricity and water, the existing facilities started to bear the brunt and fall into quick dilapidation.
Town planners feel that while the concept of multi-storied apartment complexes must be put into practice in view of the shortage of space, there should be serious thinking to develop satellite townships around the metropolitan city. The primary condition in this regard would be to build a sustainable communication network to link these townships with the heart of the city and among the townships as well.
When the developers are facing extreme difficulties to meet the ever increasing demand of people to get space to construct house for them it is not congruent to see how a vast area like the Tejgaon Industrial area remained under-utilised within the city. It is no more economically worthy to keep this industrial zone within the city in respect of the large area that each industry possess. Besides, except a few most of the industries here are not in operation. The concept of production technology for most of the industries in this zone has also changed over the years and these could be located to a much smaller area, in the outskirts of the city, preferably in the existing industrial parks in Gazipur or near the EPZ at Savar. The vast area thus attained from this zone at Tejgaon could be used for massive housing complexes as well as for various civic amenities which the city dwellers need.
The same problem is with the Hazaribagh tannery area. All the successive governments planned its relocation from the city's heart to Savar or any other suitable area. But it was not implemented. The relocation of the tannery units from Hazaribagh would also create an atmosphere to have a better planned residential area. The city also needs relocation of thousands of of garment factories now scattered all over Dhaka employing over one million garment workers. All these would pave the way for planning better living condition for the dwellers as well as giving it the look of a real capital city.
In all candour, it is time to rethink about saving the city of Dhaka from falling into utter degradation. With the passage of time, the city will attract more people and thus compound the existing problems too. Otherwise, time and situation may arrive one day when the only alternative would be to search for a new location to set up the capital.
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