Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque :
As for housing patterns in rural areas most villagers live in extremely poor conditions with no amenities. With exception to a few affluent and tycoons most villagers live in mud or tin roofed houses. Some live in huts with roof made of straws. In Bangladesh, a mud house is one of the traditional housing types that are used by poor families’ mainly in rural areas as well as in the outskirts of small cities. This building type is typically one or two stories and preferably used for single-family housing. This type of building is highly vulnerable to both seismic forces and high pressures due to flood. This is also vulnerable to bolt from the cloudy sky. Many villagers inside the dilapidated huts lost life due to thundering.
Nowadays in rural and suburban areas, economically stable people try to build semipacca (more permanent) houses. Despite this, the percentage of mud houses is high. Locally this type of housing is called a Kutcha Ghar. About 74% of the total houses of Bangladesh are Kutcha houses, most of which might be considered as Mud houses. According to recent statistical report, the percentage of Kutcha houses is 46% and 83% for urban and rural areas, respectively. Among mud houses, those of rammed earthtype are most common but also mud block wall systems are being used. This type of construction is still be in practiced in developing countries like Bangladesh
Ruralization of development is reflected in a proper scheme of housing and settlement for the villagers. Most villages in Bangladesh are dotted with small-nucleated settlements near the paddy field. Residential pattern full of well planned accommodations built around farm land is desirable. Ideal village home should be near community centers and parks, financial and educational institutions and clinic. Villages on the road like Dhaka-Chittagong highway endowed with rich natural infrastructures has some what been affected by unplanned urbanization. Arable land has been shrinking appallingly as apartments are springing up and new roads and community centers have been under construction.
Rural urban migration is on increase as the rural poor, mostly working class, would like to settle in urban areas, far or near, living in slum areas in squatter settlements. In Chittagong risk-prone slums are situated along hill-side or on hill tops frequently visited by natural hazards.
Admittedly housing problem is now an awfully stupendous one all over the country. Well, the government has the plan to provide house for all including the rural citizens. The disadvantaged population supposed to benefit from social safety net need residential accommodation as the basic need. For this reason housing for all should have been brought under social safety net to be extended with much enhanced allocation. Otherwise the expectation of the low income section for a house will be turned into frustration – all to the trepidation of the policy makers.
The government is planning to develop ‘22,800 plots and build 26,000 apartments in the next three years, according to budget disclosure. Housing for all is contained in vision 2021. Government will provide accommodations to the rural residents through rural housing schemes ‘around the growth centers, in each union and upazila’ with modern facilities in the urban areas. Steps should have been taken to ‘revise national housing policy 1999’ and reform Bangladesh national building code, 1993 to make ‘housing and construction activities safer, sustainable and streamlined’ putting the villagers first.
REHAB’s scheme of housing for the economically disadvantaged section in the metropolitan cities is most welcome. All the same REHAB should think to build residential accommodation for the villagers, of course not at the cost of the loss of fertile land.
A host of think tanks stressed the need for building apartment for the villagers. The idea is good. The question that may arise is that can the rural poor afford to live in apartment. This plan may discriminate against the rural poor like marginalized farmers, the landless and other vulnerable groups living below poverty line. Well the think thanks may well think to build low cost house for the poor under the scheme of rehabilitation. With rural areas beautified with apartments and infrastructural facilities there would be much less possibility of rural urban migration. Better build farm houses for villagers practicing agriculture and allied occupation. Housing schemes may well be taken for the poor associated with income generating activities like horticulture, poultry, home gardening, and weaving.
(Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque, Professor, Department of Public Administration, Chittagong University)
