Decentralise Dhaka city

Speakers at a seminar yesterday stressed the need for decentralisation of Dhaka city to save it from man-made disaster.
Any planning concerning Dhaka would be pointless unless the huge rush of people towards the city was checked, said Dr Khandakar Shawkat Hossain, secretary of the housing and public works ministry, at the seminar held at Cirdap auditorium.
The ministry organised the seminar titled "Urbanisation and climate change: urban disaster and poor habitation" in association with the management of Coalition For the Urban Poor (CUP), Urban Development Directorate (UDD) and Participatory Development Action Programme (PDAP).
"Urbanisation has a bad effect on nature but we cannot avoid it. Urbanisation will have to be done through a synchronizing the realities involved," he said.
At present estimates, four lakh people reportedly arrive in Dhaka city annually and that has been the trend in recent years, noted Shayer Gafur, professor, architecture department of Buet, in his keynote paper.
Zainal Abedin Bhuiyan, chairman of National Housing Authority, emphasized a national housing policy that would meet the needs of the times.
ASM Ismail, chief architect of the Department of Architecture, said Bangladesh should solve the climate change problem through identifying local perspectives.
Among others, urban planner, AZ Hossain Toufiq, executive director of PDA, Kazi Baby, executive director of PDAP, and Azizul Haque, superintending engineer of the public works department, spoke at the seminar.