Ensure housing for urban poor

Planning for implementation of all housing projects for the urban poor is an imminent need, speakers told a seminar Public Works Department (PWD) organised on its premises in the capital yesterday marking World Habitat Day 2016.

Most people do not have access to the most minimum housing facilities and if a poor family gets a 300 square feet house, they will consider it to be a paradise, said Prof Nazrul Islam as the special guest.

The government should keep five to 10 percent of land in its housing project plans for poor people, he added on the day, themed “Housing at the Centre”.

Planner Salma A Shafi in a PowerPoint presentation said it was well known that about 30 to 40 percent of the urban population on an average were residents of slums and squatter settlements and they spend almost 30 percent of their earnings on housing.

She said the present government's policy was to increase the supply of public housing to low income groups (LIG) but currently there was evidence that the beneficiaries were mostly public servants.

If land is made available, the private sector can work alongside the government to provide large scale housing for LIG in various forms under rental and ownership schemes, she said.

Housing and Public Works Minister Mosharraf Hossain said migration to cities, especially to the capital, was a major problem and it would have to be stopped.

He said although day labourers in the rural areas get Tk 500 along with three meals for a day's work, they tend to come to the city seeking employment.

He said the government was taking up different programmes, including providing civic facilities through different planned housing projects at upazila level, to stop migration.

The government plans on setting up 100 economic zones around the country where employment facilities will be generated for around 2 crore people, he said.

Low income people will be able to earn Tk 800 to Tk 900 daily in the areas and will not be interested in moving to cities, he said.

Housing and Public Works Secretary Shahidullah Khandaker said the government has already taken up plans to construct low cost houses in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Sirajganj.

National Housing Authority Chairman Khandaker Akhtaruzzaman said cultivable land was being destroyed every day due to the haphazard construction of houses, for which they were trying to implement planned housing projects at the upazila level.

PWD Chief Engineer Hafizur Rahman Munshi and Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha Chairman M Bazlul Karim Chawdhury addressed the seminar.