Patuakhali, Barguna public housing in bad shape

Fifteen years ago when Nasir Uddin from Bazargona village in Patuakhali Sadar upazila moved into a local Ashrayan public housing project, he thought that the accommodation crisis his family faced had been solved for good. But six years ago the family had to relocate as the dilapidated Ashrayan project was no longer fit for habitation. Many other families across Patuakhali and Barguna districts have had a similar experience.

“In 2011 at least eight houses in the project where I live were gutted by a fire caused by an electric short circuit,” says one Ashrayan resident, Jaynab Begum. “Most families left the project.

“I am still there though our house is also damaged. I have no alternative,” she said.

“The houses here leak when it rains,” says Raju Gazi, who lives in the project with his family of six. “Many of the tin sheets that comprise the roofing of our dwellings are badly damaged. In the barrack-style accommodation, six of the ten families have already left.”

In the Char Lata Ashrayan project in Rangabali upazila constructed in 2001 meanwhile, fifty out of the ninety accommodated families have left due to an absence of maintenance since the project's inauguration.

“Nine of the barrack-style houses, each of which was supposed to accommodate ten families, are unfit for use,” says Mainuddin, one of the remaining residents at the Char Lata project.

“In the case of Char Lata,” explains the chairman of the local Chalitabunia union council, Fazlur Rahman, “cyclones and storms hit the area every year leaving the houses badly damaged.”

Tapan Kumar Ghosh, the project implementation officer responsible for Ashrayan housing projects in Rangabali upazila, says higher authorities have been informed several times about the poor condition of the Char Lata public housing. Repeated requests have been made for funding to renovate the dwellings, he says, but thus far without success.

“Of the 79 Ashrayan projects in Patuakhali,” says the district-level acting relief and rehabilitation  officer Tariqul Islam, “29 are unfit for occupation due to a lack of repairs.”

In neighbouring Barguna most of the houses in the 28 Ashrayan projects there are also unfit for habitation. In Amtali and Taltali upazilas where 17 projects are supposed to shelter more than 2,300 families, only 811 families are currently residing, with more than 1,500 houses lying vacant. From these houses many fittings including doors, windows and tin sheets from the roofing have been stolen.

Yet the state of disrepair evident in many Ashrayan projects is not the only problem. Some projects are inconveniently located. Locals in several areas of Barguna told The Daily Star that there is little interest in being allocated an Ashrayan house since often there is no employment opportunity nearby and the upazila town can be as far as 25 kilometres from the Ashrayan site.

“We will send a proposal to higher authorities very soon to repair the Ashrayan dwellings,” says Patuakhali Sadar upazila's nirbahi officer, Bakahid Husain. “As soon as we have received the estimated repair cost from the Local Government Engineering Department.”