Slum of Bangladesh: An Overview

Slum of Bangladesh: An Overview

Abstract:

Bangladesh is a country of about 146.10 million of people containing nearly 5.3 million of slum people. Two censuses and many surveys on slum people were conducted by the government of Bangladesh to know and figure out the key problems of slum dwellers. A brief overview about the slum of Bangladesh has presented in this paper by analyzing the censuses and survey report. An informative scrutiny on number, structure and housing condition of slum, nature of slum people, common standard of living and wretchedness of slum people, income patterns, poverty scenario and NGOs coverage has presented in this paper. Finally, some suggestion has designed to remove the problems of slum people.

1.      Introduction

Slum is a word, a name that reflects the miseries of deprived people who have to struggle with poverty to survive in this beautiful world. Slums and shanties are available in every countries regardless which are developed or developing countries. Usually poor people migrated from village and very poor people in urban areas live in slum. They choose the slum to live, because they have no afforded. Basically, for eight reasons people usually migrated to slum life. In this paper it has been tried to give a brief description of slum of Bangladesh with some policy suggestion.

1.      Slum: definition

1. A slum is a cluster of housing units which grow unsystematically in government owned or private vacant land. The walls and roofs of such houses are generally made of straw leaves, Gunny bag, polythene paper, bamboo etc. a tin shed house or even a building may be added, if it is situated within the purview and environment of a slum. The physical and hygienic conditions of such houses are far below those of a common urban residential area. Generally, this segment of people are distressed and forced to live in such unhygienic condition due to economics reason[i].

2. A slum is a cluster of compact settlements of 5 or more households which generally grow very unsystematically and haphazardly in an unhealthy condition and atmosphere on government and private vacant land. Slums also exist in the owner based household premises[ii].
3. slums are defined as settlements with a minimum of 10 households or a mess unit with a minimum of 25 members and predominantly very poor housing; very high population density and room crowding; very poor environmental services, especially water and sanitation;  very low socio-economic status; lack of security of tenure[iii].

1.      Characteristics of slum[i]

1)      Predominantly very poor housing structure e.g.Jhupri, tong, chhai, tin shed, semi-pucca flimsy structure and dilapidated building in bad conditions etc.

2)      very high housing density

3)      Generally slum settlements grow on govt. /semi govt. vacant land and public owned places, abandoned buildings/places or by the side of the road.

4)      Slum housing materials are very cheap and of low quality such as old gunny bags, polythene, straw etc. and have lower height in comparison with other normal structure.

5)      Having poor sewerage and drainage or even it has no such facilities.

6)      Inadequate and unhealthy drinking water supply.

7)      Prevailing unhealthy atmosphere

8)      Insufficient or absence of street lighting

9)      Little or no paved streets

10)  Slum settlements are inhabited by poor, uneducated and below poverty level people.

11)  In exceptional cases jhupri houses are built within premises of owner based houses and are rented out. These were also considered as slums.

2.      Some relevant definitions[ii]:

1)      Statistical Metropolitan Area (SMA): city corporation and the adjoining paurashavas, cantonments and sub-urban areas have been defined with map as Statistical Metropolitan Area (SMA) for census purposes.

2)      Paurashavas: the incorporated areas administered by the government as urban areas under the paurashavas ordinance-1977 are considered as the paurashavas.

3)      City: paurashavas having a population of 100000 (one lac) to 500000 (five lac) has been defined as city for statistical purposes.

4)      Household: person or persons related or unrelated, living together and taking food from the same kitchen constitute a household.

5)      Literacy rate: Percentage of population of age 7 years and above who can write a letter in any languages to the population of the same age group is the Literacy rate.

 

1.      Slums survey and census:

Table-1

	Name	Year	conducted by	Ordered by
	the survey of The slums and squatter population in Dhaka[i]	1974	Centre for Urban Studies (CUS)	the Government of Bangladesh, UNCHS
	The slum area census	1986	Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)	the Government of Bangladesh,
	The slums survey in the Dhaka Metropolitan Area[ii]	1991	Centre for Urban Studies(CUS)	ICDDR, B
	The slums survey in the Dhaka Metropolitan Area[iii]	1996	Centre for Urban Studies(CUS)	the Asian Development Bank
	Census of slum areas and Floating Population	1997	Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)	the Government of Bangladesh,
	Slum of urban -Bangladesh, Mapping and Census,	2005	Centre for Urban Studies(CUS)	USAID

Between 1974 and 2005, three surveys on the slums and squatter population in Dhaka Metropolitan Area were conducted by Centre for Urban Studies (CUS) for the Government of Bangladesh, UNCHS and the Asian Development Bank respectively.

In the same time, three censuses were conducted on slums while two of them by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) for the Government of Bangladesh, which covered six divisions including Paurashavas and city, called Statistical Metropolitan Area (SMA) in 1986 and 1997 accordingly. The last one, Mapping and Census of urban

Slum of Bangladesh was conducted by Centre for Urban Studies (CUS) for USAID in 2005, which just covered the urban areas of six divisions.

2.      Causes behind slum creation:

Usually it is claimed that, a large number of poor people come to the divisional cities and adjacent paurashavas for livelihood and many other purposes, which highly contribute to create slums. In the slum census of 1997, firstly it was tried to find out the key reasons of migration to slum areas.

Table-2

Reason for coming to slum (as % of total households)
River erosion	17.2
Uprooted	12.53
Driven out	2
Abandoned	1.22
Meager income	19.97
Insecurity	2.43
For job	39.53
Others	5.12
Total	100
Total households	334431

The eight reasons founded for migrated to slum areas in which 39.53% of slum households for looking job followed by insufficient income, River erosion, uprooted and others etc.but the recent data is not available.

3.      Slums of Bangladesh: an overview

1)      Total Number of slums in Bangladesh:

Table-3

Years	Number of slums and squatter clusters	Number of slum households	Slum population
1986	-	176745	831645
1997	2991	334431	1,391,459
2005	9048	1043329	5233217

The slum area census 1986 covered the three Statistical Metropolitan Areas (SMA), Chittagong, Dhaka and Khulna including Paurashavas and city and counted 176745 households in slums whereas this figure was recorded as 259244 in Census of slum areas and Floating Population 1997, for these same areas.

With some variation, Mapping and Census of urban Slum of Bangladesh, 2005 accounted it as 977891 for the city corporation areas of these cities.

Furthermore, the number of population living in these areas was founded as 831645, 1063010 and 4876453 in the census of 1986, 1997 and 2005 respectively.

Moreover, the Number of slums and squatter clusters in the same areas were recorded as

2991 in 1997 while it increased to 7300 in 200

2)      Number of slums in Dhaka city:

Table-4

years of survey	Number of slums and squatter clusters	Number of slum households	Slum population
1974	-	-	275,000
1986	-	121328	-
1991	2,156	-	718,143
1996	3,007	-	1500000
1997	1579	185917	754866
2005*	4966	673883	3286770

*

Due to the variation in the definition of slum, the figures of the table ill matched for different years, but table depicted the tremendous increase in the slum, slum household as well as Slum population in Dhaka city.

3)      Number of slums in Bangladesh: by division:

Table-5

Number of slum and cluster between 1997 and 2005 census
City	1997	% of total	2005	% of total
Dhaka Mega city	1579	52.79	4966	54.9
Chittagong SMA	186	6.22	1814	20
Khulna SMA	202	6.75	520	5.7
Rajshahi SMA	84	2.81	641	7.1
Barisal	*		351	3.9
Sylhet	**		756	8.3
14 cities	293	9.8	***	***
100-Paurashavas	647	21.63	***	***
Total	2991	100	9048	100

*Included with Khulna** Included with Chittagong*** Not coverage

According to the report of the Census of slum areas and Floating Population 1997, the largest number of slum situated in Dhaka city followed by 100-Paurashavas and 14 cities respectively. While in 2005, Dhaka remained the first followed by Chittagong, Rajshahi SMA and Barisal accordingly.

In addition to that, the report confirmed that, 1579 slums and cluster were situated in Dhaka SMA whereas this figure reached at 4966 in 2005 with a broad definition of slums. (See definition of slum).the percentages of these numbers recorded as 52.9 and 54.9 respectively.

Between 1997 and 2005, the percentages of slum in Chittagong SMA, Khulna SMA and Sylhet fluctuated in the range of 5 to 8.in 2005 census, 641 slums founded in Rajshahi SMA while it was only 84 in 1997.

The data insure that, the expansion of slums is not confined not only to divisional cities but also in the urbanized areas and Paurashavas.

4)      Number of slum Households and their % between 1986 and 2005 census

 Table-6: Number of slum Households and their % between 1986 and 2005 census

City	1986	% of total	1997	% of total	2005	% of total
Dhaka Mega city	121328	68.65	185917	55.59	673,883	64.6
Chittagong SMA	30854	17.45	45143	13.5	266,182	25.5
Khulna SMA	24563	13.9	28184	8.43	37,826	3.6
Rajshahi SMA	-	-	6998	2.09	27,665	2.6
Barisal	***	***	*	*	19,460	1.9
Sylhet	***	***	**	**	18,313	1.7
14 cities	-	-	24448	7.31	***	***
100-Paurashavas	-	-	43741	13.08	***	***
Total	176745	100	334431	100	1,043,329	100

*Included with Khulna** Included with Chittagong*** Not coverage

During 1986, the number of slum households was 176745 in the three divisional

Cities including Paurashavas, while this figure increased and reported at 334431 in the six divisional Cities including Paurashavas and some urbanized areas, called SMA.in the census on the slums of six city corporation in 2005, this number recorded as1, 043, 329.however, Dhaka still occupied the first position in terms of living slum household, which was 68.65 and 64.6% in 1997 and 2005 respectively. Chittagong SMA secured the second position followed by Khulna SMA, Rajshahi SMA and sylhet containing 25.5%, 3.6%, 2.6%, 1.9% and 1.7% respectively.

5)      Percentage of male and female In Distribution of population between 1986 and 1997 census

Table-7

% of male and female In Distribution of population between 1986 and 1997 census
City	1986	1986	1986	1997	1997	1997
City	Total population	% of male	%of Female	Total population	% of male	%of Female
Dhaka Mega city	575604	52.75	47.25	745866	54.66	53.82
Chittagong SMA	138282	58.58	41.42	188839	14.05	13.07
Khulna SMA	117750	52.5	47.5	119305	8.05	9.15
Rajshahi SMA	***	***	***	29766	2.11	2.17
Barisal	***	***	***	*	*	*
Sylhet	***	***	***	**	**	**
14 cities	***	***	***	109012	7.77	7.9
100-Paurashavas	***	***	***	189670	13.39	13.88
Total population	831645	53.69	46.31	1391458	51	48.99

In 1986, the total population in slum was 831645 with 53.69 % and 46.31% of male and female respectively in three divisional cities with adjacent Paurashavas.while in 1997.this figure reached at 1391458 with 51% and 48.99 % of male and female respectively in six divisional cities with adjacent Paurashavas and urban areas. The slum population figured out as 5233217 in 2005 for six divisional cities.

6)      Population Density: Slum Area and Overall City, 2005

Table-8: Population Density: Slum Area and Overall City, 2005

City	person Per acre	person Per acre
City	slum area	city total
Dhaka	891	121
Chittagong	1032	94
Khulna	536	82
Rajshahi	272	39
Sylhet	626	52
Barisal	541	29
all cities	831	95

The density figure reflects the miseries of slum people.The average population density in slums were 831 persons per acre in 2005. Density varied from 272 persons per acre in Rajshahi to 1,032 in Chittagong. Dhaka had the second highest density at 891 persons per acre. The overall gross population density for Dhaka was less than 121 persons per acre. Thus, the population density in slums there was at least 7 times higher than the average for the city as a whole. In Chittagong, the population density in slum areas was 11 times that of the overall city.

 

1)      Housing Structure and condition of slum

Diagram-1

Table-9

Housing Structure (percentage of households)
	1986	1997	2005
Jhupri/Shacks/Mud	20.55	41.41	11.3
Bamboo structure/ Tong	44.66	0	0
Tin shed	30.48	28.33	0
Tong	0	8.57	0
Chhai	0	17.69	0
Pucca	0	0.91	0
semi pucca	0	3.09	42.4
Kutcha flimsy structure	0	0	44.8
Dilapidated old buildings	0	0	1.1
Others/better quality	4.31	0	0.5
total	100	100	100

The Housing Structure of slum dwellers is very poor. According to the report of the slum census-1986, 44.66% households lived in Bamboo structured houses followed by Tin shed 30.48% and Jhupri/Shacks/Mud 20.55%.however, in 1997, Jhupri dominate housing structured by capturing the highest portion 41.41% and reduced to 11.3% in 2005.Conversely, 44.8 % households lived in Kutcha housing followed by semi pucca 42.4% and old buildings 1.1% respectively.

1)      Ownership of agricultural land

The alarming indicator is that, with the course of time, the slum households are becoming landless with an increasing trend. In 1986, the percentage of landless people was 78.08 which were reached to 83.47 in 1997.As depicted from the diagram.

Diagram-2

Consequently, the slum people live in the land of Govt. or private organization. As data shows that, in 2005, the majority portion of slum land, 88.6% was owned privately followed by government. (9.3%) and others (2.2%) respectively. whereas these figures were counted as 51.92%, 43.83% and 4.25% for government.

2)      Rental status of slums

In2005, 73.9% of slum households live in rented land while it was 63.33% in 1986.conversely, 63.33% of slum households were lived in rent-free land  whereas it was reduced to 11.74% in 2005 .it is bad news that, only 14.5% households lived in their own land in 2005.

Table-10

	1986	1997	2005
owner		44.54	14.5
Rented	63.33	48.45	73.9
rent free/others	36.67	7.01	11.7

3)      Sources of light

   Diagram-3

For lighting the housing unit, 70.99% of households used Kerosene in 1986, while it was reduced to 27.59% and only 7% in 1997 and 2005 respectively.conversely,28.51% households depended on electricity for lighting in 1986, whereas it has increased to 57.7% and 91.10% in 1997 and 2005 accordingly. Furthermore, a tiny portion of households depends on other sources for lighting such as 1.10% in 2005 compared to 0.16% in 2005.

4)      Sources of fuel

The slum dwellers usually use straw leaves, gas etc. as fuel for preparation of their meals. Wood is still the main sources of the fuel in the slum areas. the data states that, in 1986, the majority percent (71.60%)of the slum household used wood as fuel followed by 10.60% straw/leaves/cowdung,7.44% gas,4.79% husk and 3.38% kerosene etc.

But the census report- 2005 claimed that, gas has become the second sources of fuel in the slum and 44.6% of households depend on gas. It was not available in Khulna, Rajshahi and Barisal. In Dhaka, 81.2% of clusters and 57.6% of households in slums had access to cooking gas while in Chittagong and Sylhet gas was available to only 27.9% and 16.1% of slum households, respectively.

5)      Toilet facility

Diagram-4, 5, 6

It is highly alarming that, the toilet and sanitation facilities are absolutely unsafe as well as unsatisfactory. The three pie diagrams depicting toilet facilities show that, unsafe and unhealthy toilet facilities occupied the majority percent of toilet in the slums. such as temporary (79.45%) ,Kancha (53.80%) and pit (52.8%) in 1986,1997 and 2005 respectively. even open space were used and still using as toilet which accounted 8.99% and 4.1%in 1997 and 2005 respectively. while the safety toilets were few in numbers such as  sanitary (20.55%) and sanitary (7.93%),pucca(20.14%) in 1986 and 1997 respectively.

In addition to that, Latrines linked to sewers and septic tanks and water sealed latrines are considered safe from a hygienic standpoint. Only 28.8% of slum households had access to one of these three types of latrines in 2005. Dhaka slum residents had the best access to safe latrines (35.6%) while those in Sylhet and Barisal had very poor access (only 2.1% and 0.4%, respectively) for the same time. Pit latrines, a variety widely regarded as unsafe, were common in slum areas. In almost all slums, latrines were usually shared by two or more households. In 13.4% of slums, one latrine was shared by 11 or more families.

6)      Sources of drinking water:

Diagram-7

The census report-1997 states that, the 55.42% of slum households used Tube-well as the sources of their drinking water followed by municipal tap 21.59%, others 15.35% and river/canal 2.88% respectively. Only 1.01% households were collected drinking water from the ponds.

Conversely, 61.10% households were getting their drinking water from the municipal taps followed by tube-well 37% and others 1.90% respectively as reported in slum census-2005.

7)      Literacy rate of slum people

Table-11

Literacy of slum people by locality 1986 and 1997
City	1986	1997
Dhaka Mega city	12.61	14.35
Chittagong SMA	16.48	16.99
Khulna SMA	15.08	16.67
Rajshahi SMA	***	13.36
Barisal	***	*
Sylhet	***	**
14 cities	***	14.66
100-Paurashavas	***	12.53
National	13.6	14.66

Literacy refers to the ability to write a letter. The literacy rate of slum’s population was14.66% where the male literacy rate was 17.88 and female literacy rate was 11.32% respectively, which was slightly higher than that of 1986 figures. But it was significantly smaller than the literacy rate of 32.4% in 1991 census. It appears that literacy rates very low in slum areas.

8)      Employment Scenario:

   Diagram-8

A person is termed as employed who is engaged in some gainful work. In slum areas, most of the adults are found to be engaged in some activities in exchange of some benefits either in cash or kind. The census report 1986 figured out that, 40.98% of the slum population was employed where 65.53% was male and 11.91% was female while 59.02% people including children and student was unemployed due to having no specific job. Moreover, the employment rate slightly increased to 47.88% while unemployment rate was 52.12%.Among 52.12%,4.71% were not working, 8.60% were students ,0.71% were begging and others 38.10%,who had no specific jobs ,but were seeking to job.

The reported data claim that, unemployment rate is very high among the slum population and almost all of the employed persons were engaged in informal sector. It will be cleared from the list of job structure of slum population as given below.

.

9)      Income Pattern and poverty rate in Slums

Table-12

Households’ Monthly Income Pattern by City                                         (percentage of households)
City	<2000 tk	2001-3000tk	30001-4000tk	4001-5000tk	above 5000 tk	Number of households
Dhaka	3.8	19.6	34.5	27.6	14.6	673,883
Chittagong	21	36.8	27.6	11.6	2.9	266,182
Khulna	34.4	54.3	9.4	1.5	0.3	37,826
Rajshahi	8.8	52.1	33.9	4.7	0.5	27,665
Sylhet	0.8	1.9	22	69.3	5.9	18,313
Barisal	44.6	44.8	9.9	0.6	0.1	19,460
all cities	10.7	26.8	29.6	23.7	9.1	1,043,329

The census report-2005 explained that, 90.8% slum people lived below the urban poverty line[i] (tk.5000 as estimated by the CUS study team for May 2005) with 37.5% having incomes below Tk. 3,000 per month. Most of households (29.6%) income range was 2001-3000tk followed by 2001-3000tk (26.8%), 4001-5000tk (23.7%) and <2000 tk (10.7%) respectively. on the other hand, only 9.1% of households had the income of tk.5000.

Besides, poverty was very high in the slum households of Barisal and accounted that,99.9% people live below the urban poverty line of tk.5000.even 44.6% had income below tk.2000.

Khulna (99.7%) occupied the second position in the slum poverty followed by Rajshahi (99.5%)

, Chittagong (97.1%) and Sylhet (94.1%) respectively.

Dhaka was slightly better off, with 14.6% having incomes above the poverty line and slum poverty 85.4% with 23.4% having incomes that fell below the hardcore poverty line.

10)  NGO Coverage of Slums

About three-fourths of the slums (71.5%) received services from one or more NGOs.

13.1% and 58.4% of clusters received services from one and more than one NGOs respectively. Whereas 28.5% clusters did not receive any service from NGOs. Besides, by division, Rajshahi received the highest services followed by Barisal, Dhaka, Khulna, Chittagong and sylhet respectively. The figures were 86%, 81.2%, 58.5%, 51.3%, 50.4% and 40.7% respectively as reported by slum census 2005.

Table-13: Percentage of Slums Covered by NGO Programs         (percentage of clusters)

NGO coverage	Dhaka	Chittagong	Khulna	Rajshahi	Sylhet	Barisal	all cities
one NGO	11.3	7.2	27.1	7	34.8	13.1	13.1
more than one	58.5	50.4	51.3	86	40.7	81.2	58.4
none	30.2	42.4	11.5	7	24.5	5.7	28.5
don't know	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
total	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
total slum	4966	1814	520	641	756	351	9048

 

11)  Overall Characteristics of Slum Settlements

According to the report of mapping and census of urban slum of Bangladesh, 2005,

Very poor housing 84.6 %of total clusters

Very high population density 93.8%

Very poor environmental service 99%.2

Very low socioeconomic status96.9%

Lack of security of tenure 9.4%

 

1.      Policy suggestions:

1. Need specific development program: Many survey and census were conducted on slums by both government of Bangladesh and donor organizations but there were no specific program or project not yet taken by the government to improve the condition of slum households.
2. Special program for rehabilitations
3. Free-education programs or education programs through transfer payments by part-time jobs or any other possible ways should be taken by the government. Because, donation or kind is nit the solution. If the slum people become educated, they will earn their livelihoods pleasantly.
• Education programs for both male and female including child and old.
• Special transfer payments program for educating slum people. Government may impose poll tax on the richest man or collect the Zakah money (2.5%) from them in the country.

4. Ensure the availability of pure drinking Water and sanitation,     
5. Special program for poverty alleviation

 

1.      Conclusion:

“Slum life” means a bad dreamy life, life of man as non-human being, and the final deprivation from fundamentals constitutional rights-it is proved from the description of this paper. Though every government committed to eradicate poverty completely, they did not yet take the appropriate program. To save the lives of 5.3 million slum people, it is urgent to take immense steps by government, NGOs even an individual level. Otherwise, instead of becoming a peaceful and developed nation, our country will be a hell for us.

 

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[i] The household monthly income of Tk. 5,000 was estimated as the urban poverty line for May 2005 by the CUS study team on the basis of urban poverty line per capita income of TK.906 (or Tk 4344 for an average urban household) for May 2004 determined by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and presented in its “Preliminary Report of the Poverty Monitoring Survey, 2004”. p.13

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[i] http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=93293

Urban slums of Bangladesh, by-Professor Nazrul Islam,Dr. AQM Mahbub,Dr. Nurul Islam Nazem, The Daily star, Published On: 2009-06-20

[ii] http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=93293

Urban slums of Bangladesh, by-Professor Nazrul Islam,Dr. AQM Mahbub,Dr. Nurul Islam Nazem,The Daily star, Published On: 2009-06-20

[iii] http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=93293

Urban slums of Bangladesh, by-Professor Nazrul Islam,Dr. AQM Mahbub,Dr. Nurul Islam Nazem, The Daily star,  Published On: 2009-06-20

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[i] Census of slum areas and Floating Population 1997, Volume-1, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, October-1999,

[ii] Census of slum areas and Floating Population 1997, Volume-1, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, October-1999,

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[i] Report on the slum area census 1986,Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics,June-1988,page 4,

[ii] Census of slum areas and Floating Population 1997, Volume-1, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, October-1999, page 2

[iii] Slum of urban -Bangladesh, Mapping and Census, 2005 by Centre for Urban Studies(CUS), http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=93293

Urban slums of Bangladesh, by-Professor Nazrul Islam,Dr. AQM Mahbub,Dr. Nurul Islam Nazem, The Daily star, Published On: 2009-06-20