Habitat Day thoughts

The sheer scale of the crisis must impel the government to pay close attention to it. The slum-dwelling constituency which is growing at an approximate annual rate of 7 per cent comprises the heart of the city's labour force. Fully 25 lakhs of this population are estimated to be working as labourers with the bulk of the remainder working in the lowest ranks of the service industry.

Ninety per cent of the work-force of the garment industry, which is the mainstay of the country's export economy, is drawn from the population of these urban slums. The remainder of the slum-dwellers, in the menial work they perform for us, are crucial to the running of the city. In addition, it is estimated that this population contributes in the region of Tk. 600 crore anually to the country's economy.

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This community lives without even the most basic of amenities or rights. They do not even have any rights to the land upon which they squat and live under constant threat of eviction. Lack of safe drinking water and basic sanitation -- the theme of this year's World Habitat Day -- are only some of the difficulties they must deal with on a daily basis. The health and sanitation crisis in these slums is directly proportional to their subhuman living conditions. In 1998 a project to build 15,000 flats to house a small proportion of the city's slum-dwellers was approved but has not yet moved beyond the allotment of 47.9 acres of land for the site.

The first step towards ameliorating their conditions would be to rehabilitate them with roofs overhead. Basically it is imperative for both the government and the NGO sector to recognize this vast population of urban slum-dwellers as an urgent priority and begin to create programmes and initiatives specifically targeted at the crisis in our urban slums.