Flood protection by improving rural housing
Flood protection can be supplemented and made more viable by improving the housing of rural Bangladesh. Over 80% of our people live in the villages and due to poor housing most of them live in a deplorable condition. Our government, and the wealthy, seem to care very little about it. With good intentions, and a little effort from the public and private sectors, things can be changed very dramatically and, thereby, the living standard and quality of life of our people can be improved tremendously.
Let us consider a Bangladeshi village today. Thatched houses, if one can call them houses at all, are scattered everywhere in countryside. They are not good for living, and are scattered in such a way that no road connection, or simple necessary amenities for better living, such as running water, good toilets or washing facilities, can be organised.
For three-four months in a year a large portion of Bangladesh remains under water, and the people are cut-off from each other due to rain and rising water level. We cannot do anything about that because of the very climate of our country. But certainly we can do something to make living conditions a little better and more acceptable with improved housing, which can also save us from the bad effects and enormous economic loss due to the recurrent floods.
We can do much to control flood and to improve our housing in rural Bangladesh, provided we have the political will to make a change in our village life. Yes, I firmly believe we can do a lot, and we need not keep our villages in utmost poverty and misery any longer. Bangladesh's survival as a nation depends on improvement of our villages, and not in exporting cheap labour or, for some very few, if and when possible, emigrating to US or Canada.
During the last 20 years many roads have been constructed. Is it not possible to move all the thatched houses nearer to the roads in an organised way? On each side of a road we can dig ponds for raising the land high enough to protect the people from floods, and make small townships on these high-rise lands where each family would have a simple comfortable house. Bringing people together would make it possible to offer each and every family basic facilities such as running water, sanitary toilet, etc. Attached to the houses there could be a small plot for each family where vegetables could be cultivated, and the ponds could be used for farming fish. Schools and healthcare centre, a market etc. could be built within this township.
There could be another way of making cheap and comfortable houses, like the "long houses" in Borneo (now Kalimantan). These "long houses" are built on stilts, and are divided into a public area along one side and a row of private living quarters lined along the other side. Instead of stilts we can have raised land, and use our own imagination while making houses that would be good for our environment and for comfortable living. One may see a similarity between the Borneo "long houses" and the South American jungle village houses, which are also large single structures for many people. Most importantly, it is not the elegant design but the height that removes the inconvenience caused to the people by floods. In modern times many of the older longhouses in Borneo have been replaced with buildings using more modern materials, but the design is almost the same.
Long houses in Bangladesh could be used for pleasant, comfortable and safe living for everybody. Parts of them could be used for married couples with small children, and the rest could live together in another part. People would be living in these houses separately, but still together, making life pleasant and comfortable with constant companionship.
Long houses, with little modification, can be good for improving sanitation and producing gas and fertiliser. Making clean and communal toilets following the Chinese model could be very useful: the waste can be used to produce gas for cooking, street lighting, and fertiliser for agriculture, with very little investment.
Making long houses in a small township would also make more land available for agriculture. Our agriculture could be mechanised and modernised, and each agricultural worker could be employed by an organisation responsible for food production. I think, Grameen Bank could take over all agricultural land of Bangladesh, and food production for the country should be left with such an agro-based institution. Let there be NO absentee landowner in Bangladesh, and let the land belong to those who toil on it. Cattle raising by individuals can be replaced by common and organised cattle farms. These actions can change our way of life and further the living standard and welfare of our people.
The concentration of people would make schools and health care centres easily available to all, and more land would be freed for cultivation of cash crops and other food stuffs. By doing all these we can make Bangladesh a lush green garden and a nice country to live in. Good schools and health care facilities will make village life attractive and the pressure on the cities will be greatly reduced.
So far, what could be done for better houses and better living in the villages have been suggested, but how to finance it? We need to consider various possibilities for materialising our suggested plan. What are those possibilities that can make our ideas come true?
First and most importantly, we need a political decision supported by social and cultural movement to do what we desire. Vested interest groups who own the land, and who are mostly absentee landowners, would oppose the idea vehemently. But what right should one have on agricultural land, especially in a country like Bangladesh where millions are landless, that he does not cultivate himself? We need to ponder for a while on how we keep our people and the society at large poor and vulnerable by giving the land ownership to some people who have nothing to do with cultivation.
Many developed countries have rules that do not allow people to own agricultural land if they are not trained or educated in agricultural work, and pursue the profession as a full time occupation. Could not, or should not, we adopt such laws for our country? And if we can give land to people who toil on it, surely a substantial economic up-lift will occur, and a promise of a nice comfortable house would lure many to go to any length to get it. Apart from this, house building finance can help people to build such houses.
A massive program for constructing rural houses phase by phase by the government would be another way to make better housing and, thereby better living for the villagers. We must also remember that the estimated cost of the present flood is estimated to be $6 billion. Shall we wait and seek help from Allah only, until a great flood occurs and washes away our whole population to Bay of Bengal? Let us not forget that money is not the problem for good work, if and when there is no lack of good intention. Allah also helps those who help themselves.
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