This piece is the fourth in a series of summaries of papers presented at the "Bangladesh in the 21st Century" conference held at Harvard University. The views expressed in the articles are expressly those of the authors.
THE equitable distribution of infrastructure in a country is a pre-requisite to ensuring uniform economic and social well being of different regions of the country. A substantial improvement in the infrastructure sector is needed both in qualitative and quantitative terms.
Investment decisions in installation of infrastructure is an important factor which eventually influences development of economic and social growth centres of the country. In a developing country like Bangladesh, progress of urban and rural growth centres, as well as agriculture is critically dependent on physical and institutional infrastructure. This study is an attempt to depict the infrastructure situation of Bangladesh in all the 64 districts of the country.

Four selected infrastructure facilities
Road infrastructure is provided and maintained by three agencies: Roads and Highways Department (RHD), LGED, and local municipalities. A total of 222,423 km of roads run through the country. Total length of paved roads under these agencies is about 25,000 km at present.
Access to electricity in Bangladesh is one of the lowest in the world -- coverage today stands at less than 20% of the total population. Consumption of power is also meager at only about 110 kwh per capita per annum. The major share of electricity is consumed by urban areas. In an agro-based country like Bangladesh electricity in rural areas is essential for irrigation and to run small-scale industries.
The rural areas of Bangladesh suffer from lack of quality drinking water. Traditionally, the groundwater source is considered as the safest source but unfortunately over the last few years thousands of tube-wells have been found to be contaminated with naturally-occurring arsenic at higher than WHO-recommended levels. Salinity intrusion from seawater deep into the land in the southwest is rendering groundwater unfit for consumption. Cities and urban areas are also facing the problem of receding water table due to heavy groundwater extraction.
Percentages of population having access to safe drinking water increased during the period 1990 to 2002 from 71% to 75% (UNSTAT, 2005). In rural areas, access to improved sanitation has increased from 11 % to 29 % in the years between 1990 and 2002. However, in the case of urban areas the situation has deteriorated, coverage of sanitation dropped from 71 % to 56 % (BBS 2003).

Analysis of present status of infrastructure
Disparity among regions regarding distribution of facilities leads to deprived under- developed areas and causes many socio-economic problems. To measure the regional disparity in terms of spatial distribution of these four selected infrastructure facilities, two techniques have been applied in our research: (i) Composite Analysis and (ii) Location Quotient Analysis.

Composite analysis
Regional disparity is identified through distribution of different infrastructure facilities in Bangladesh. In this study, we attempt to address and evaluate the accessibility of different infrastructure facilities on the basis of population distributions in different districts of Bangladesh. For such analysis all the selected variables are considered in total to identify the status of infrastructure provision in regions of Bangladesh in respect to country's overall infrastructure facilities.
The collected data on four infrastructures were first standardised. Sum of the scores for the four selected infrastructures provided the composite score. The standardised Z score for the districts has been calculated from the composite score. To rank all the 63 districts except Dhaka, Z-scores have been categorised into seven classes. By composite analysis, it has been found that only 6% districts belong to the "national level" standard. About 51% districts belong to "below the national level" while 43% remain "above the national level." The northern districts and some southern districts of the country are deprived in terms of the four selected infrastructure facilities whereas the central part of the country is in better condition. Hill tract areas are also poorly served by these infrastructures.

Location quotient analysis
To study the district-wise distribution of particular infrastructures, Location Quotient method is used for analysis of localisation. Dependency of different districts regarding infrastructure facilities is obtained through "Location Quotient" calculation. This development index shows a complete and detailed scenario of a region for a particular infrastructure where the value of the location quotient lower than 1 refers to lower than the national average and for greater than 1 indicates higher than national average level.
From distribution of electricity facility, it is found that about 75% districts of Bangladesh (48 districts) lie below national average. Border districts of Bangladesh are more deprived from electricity facility. About 72% districts of Bangladesh have water supply facilities above the average national level. Dhaka city and its surrounding districts have the best electricity facility in Bangladesh.
Water supply condition is far better compared to other three infrastructure facilities of Bangladesh. Hilly regions have the worst drinking water supply condition. In terms of sanitation facility, 64% districts of Bangladesh (41 districts) are below national average. Sanitation coverage is better in the capital city and its surrounding districts. Condition of sanitation facility is worst in the north-western and hilly areas of Bangladesh.
The eastern and the southern part of the country have better roadway facilities whereas this facility is not so good for the northern part. This research found some regions of the country (northern districts, hill tracts, some border districts) that are significantly deprived from all the facilities, where as the capital city and its surrounding districts are better served. So, infrastructures are not evenly distributed throughout the country which makes some regional imbalance among the districts.

Recommendations

• Ensure uniform and equity distribution of infrastructures throughout the country for balanced economic and social development. It has several positive impacts such as reduction of migration of people to big cities, optimum utilisation land resources, and improvement of local community.
• Use a comprehensive planning policy considering spatial aspects to distribute infrastructures within the country.
• Distribute of availability of electricity judiciously because it is one of the major pre-requisite for industrialisation and other development works.
• In addition to agriculture and industry, tourism sector has great potential to contribute to the economy. All the infrastructural facilities discussed here have strong association with investment in tourism sector. Hill tracts and coastal areas of Bangladesh can be considered as focal points of tourism development. It is evident that these regions are deprived of infrastructural facilities.

Dr. Ishrat Islam is Assistant Professor and Niger Sultana, Sangida Mazumder, and Shakila Sharmin are Masters students, Department of Urban & Regional Planning, BUET.