Flocking Parasites

Parasitism invades the society,
While most get impunity,
Only mosquito gets the blame.
Pointless to spend the money,
Unless the issue is put into planner's frame.

Dhaka has long been a city of parasites. Mosquito is perhaps the most annoying one and gets the most blame. Hardly any evening left when mosquitoes do not swoop on bare parts of the body. As the night gets deeper, the mosquito problem becomes unbearable. Overcrowded Dhaka, unhygienic lifestyle of its residents and little care to the surroundings are equally responsible for worsening of the problem.As the night gets deeper , the mosquito problem becomes unbearable. Overcrowded Dhaka, unhygienic lifestyle and little care to the surroundings are equally responsible for the worsening of the problem. People from all the corners of Bangladesh thronged into Dhaka and amplify the problem of clogged drains, shrinking canals and disappearance of lakes. Swampy lands only turn into breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Though city corporations employ all the arsenals they possess to fight this buzzing evils, no mean turns effective to give relieve Dhaka residents from this blood-sucking nightmare. To my surprise, I discover that even inside my mosquito net mosquitoes outside the net behaving like zombies desperately try to enter inside the net. I have never seen such all-out-effort from the mosquitoes before.

Affluent families could easily afford to take all the steps including buying foreign anti-mosquito gadgets and mosquito repellent, but those reside in slum and those fall in lower-income group have little means to protect themselves from the unstoppable zeal of mosquitoes. Imagine the pain the kids of these families endure while studying or housewives have to go through while cooking or doing other household work.

I encounter a news report claiming number of culex mosquitoes quadrupled in recent weeks. I do not want to embark on blame shaming. Anti-mosquito programs run by city corporations smoke the mosquitoes into houses. An incessant and annoying song hangs in the room till the dawn break. Few years ago, I encountered a video on social media. In that video a city corporation employee of a suburb is seeing fighting mosquito with a fogger machine on the back of a pickup truck like a medieval chariot-riding warrior.

That is not all. Dhaka South City Corporation few years ago released Guppi fish into the drainage system. The fish lives on mosquito larvae. Little progress has been made in subduing the mosquito in spite of all the efforts.

Thanks to mosquito, mosquito aerosol and coil publicity flourishes the media. Even these goods are not enough to contain the mosquitoes.

I have heard that male mosquitoes exposed to a little bit of radiation comes very handy in the fight against mosquitoes. It stops the procreation process. When the male mosquito meets the female counterpart, the female lost its ability to produce eggs. Could we somehow go for this approach?

Last year I read a news report that revealed that part of the sanctioned money for buying pesticide was embezzled. Result was lesser amount of pesticides available to fight mosquito. Amazing! Parasites come to rescue other parasites! In the animal kingdom "birds of a feather flock together". In this parasite-infested society we see that parasites flock together too.

Parasitism has been taking a virulent form in our society. It is pretty natural to see too many swarms of mosquitoes lingering over our head. They are just offshoot of a bigger problem. Focusing on the smaller problem like mosquito eschewing the bigger ones will not bring drastic change.

Development planners , policymakers formulated policies intended to improve people's lives, but they had reckoned without the parasites invading our society and eating our resources. Imprudent spending only swells their number in our society. Parasitic activity only gives trouble to us. Trouble caused by mosquito is conspicuously visible. But others remain subtle, hard to detect.So no complaint against the mosquito next time!

In Search Of Cheap Hostel

A city thriving on black money
Has hotels, apartments and bouts of felony.
No safe space for woman, traveler and worker.
Cheap hostel of city authority could be the answer.

Thousands of people travel across the country for different purposes every day. Part of them reside in the houses of their dear ones and large part of them rent hotel rooms for temporary stay. Stat on number of hotel rooms, be it cheap or luxurious, is not available. Travelers find it difficult to find cheap accommodation in Bangladeshi cities. Tourism corporation, a government entity, operates some hotels that are mostly scattered across tourist hotspots.

So cheap accommodation in Dhaka and mofussil towns is rare and inaccessible to most of the travelers.

A look at Dhaka's hotel accommodations reveals that most of them are meant for well-to-do-of travelers. But the capital city also houses daily wage earners and residents who constitute 80% of Dhaka city dwellers.Many stay here for more than a month to earn money and remit it back home in other parts of Bangladesh. But these people are lacking decent place to stay and food at an affordable price.

The condition for working women is somewhat nightmarish. Only few hostels are available for them. A religious charitable organization came forward to address the matter. However, the initiative is pretty small to cover huge demand of accommodation.

In recent years, a Chinese joint venture however showed the way how to do this kind of service oriented business. Its quality of service is good but it is not targeted towards the vast working class who mostly dwell in slums. Even in the Moghul era rulers built cheap accommodation across the subcontinent for travelers.

Last year back in November and December I did a small survey among the rickshaw pullers in Dhaka. I found that on average they spent 10-40% of their monthly earnings on house rent. Most these money went into wrong hands.

The money in turn contributed to the deterioration of law & order. Most of these slums were set up in public and private properties and lack proper sanitation and basic amenities. In addition, crores of Takas worth of utility bills do not end up in government coffer.

Whatever the reasons for their arrival, the seasonal worker, climate refugee, lone wanderer have right to get decent accommodation, food and amenities.

Unlike other countries, government and private sectors are conspicuously absent in accommodation services. I am not stressing on setting up luxury hotels for foreign tourists who are very rare in this country. I underscore cheap accommodation that an average daily wage earner can afford. Think of a huge hostel that offers common dining, toilet, laundry service and kitchen. And the services it offer are reasonably priced.

If such accommodation were widely available , then people making a brief stopover and seasonal workers might pay much less as rent what they are paying now.

Dhaka's real estate boom,fuelled by undocumented money, has little solution to address this problem. People dominate the business are concerned with optimization of the flat size so that the undocumented money will be legalized quickly. They bother little to invest in this kind of cheap hospitality business. More luxury flat sale means more black money manages to come in legal channel.

Dhaka has become an overcrowded big slum that is invading the surrounding areas. Since the city corporations have the means and authority to set up this kind of settlement they can embark on investing in this kind of hostel-like accommodation in association with private companies. The benefits are multipronged: cash strapped city corporation will get the much needed fund, utility companies will get bills, travelers and seasonal workers will get cheap and safe place to stay and decent meal, government and city corporations will keep a close tab on who enters the city and who gets out by maintaining a database, identifying the target people migrated to the city for social security programs, and hygiene and calm ambiance can be easy to maintain.

The city corporation operated hostel will set precedent for private companies to invest their money in this sector.

Another great advantage of operating such service is that city corporation in collaboration with the police can start services like lost & found. This kind of services are pretty common in metropolitan cities. Unfortunately, this kind of service is not available in this part of the world. In addition, community library, community health campaign could be launched more effectively and efficiently in such hostels.

Apart from city corporations, Bangladesh Internal Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) could also play a role in addressing this problem. BIWTA operates terminal and landing stations across the city. It also possesses and houses launches and vessels that are no longer in operation. These vessels could easily be converted into cheap hotels in the light of public and private partnership.

Both the BIWTA and city corporation can offer the cheap accommodation services to other cities. For instance, Dhaka City corporations may ink deal with other districts whose residents come here in drove in search of informal jobs to set up cheap hostels in those cities. The accommodation facility will be solace to cheap travelers from Dhaka and serve as resource center for district municipal authority.

Since 2010 , Dhaka has fallen into the hands of organized criminal groups. To make it woman friendly, traveler friendly, working class friendly, elected city authorities should be given more authority. City corporations should exercise power to set up cheap accommodation for travelers and workers curbing undesired influence of vested quarter.

Floating Woes Of Dhaka

Dhaka is heading for another mayoral election. Unlike other cities of Bangladesh, Dhaka is home of the largest floating people of the country. They throng here to look for jobs and to sustain families back in their native villages. Both the City Corporations mostly cater to the need of 15% or 20% of Dhaka population who have their own roof and a tiny section of whom , I assume, pay taxes to City Corporations.

Meanwhile, descamidos occupying numerous shanties across the city lack all basic amenities for a city dweller in spite of the fact that they also participate in economic activity to keep the wheel of urban economy moving. However, many of these village folks fall victim of intense exploitation as the city is infested with numerous thugs of all hues to swallow a part of the fruit of their hard labor. To insulate them from exploitation, to provide them a secure livelihood are no less important  task for City Corporations. Ignoring a decent place to stay and a decent work place for these fortune seekers could be proven too costly for both the City Corporations when it comes to the matter of making a livable Dhaka. Dhaka cannot become livable overnight by letting homeless people, the 85% of city dwellers, live a miserable life.

There will be no gainsaying that there is a slum dwelling population bulge in the last five years due to the lack of seasonal employment in rural areas, climatic conditions and urban pull factors. Numerous floating street markets and overwhelming number of rickshaws buttressed the evidence. Bangladesh's other major cities emulate the picture of rural-urban migration that can be found in Dhaka.

However, I am appalled to see that the floating people and their woes have never been made entry into the urban development programs of the two City Corporations.

Green=1997,Red=2014
Percentage of Slum Dwellers Live In Rented Accommodation.
(Source: Census of Slum 2014)

According to census of slums in 2014, 64.87% of slum dwellers live in rented houses whereas 48.45% of them lived in rented accommodation back in 1997. In Dhaka North City Corporation only 48.89% of the slum dwellers dependent on rented houses. In 2014, that percentage rose to 72.83%. Meanwhile, 87.42% of slum dwellers live in rented accommodation in Dhaka South City Corporation.

In the meantime, house rent indices  also increased. For Dhaka city, it was 4843.69 in 2013-14. In 2017-18, it stood at 6718.23.

 Despite the fact it took into account the private residential house across the country, rent in slum dwelling also goes up when utility fares and rent of private houses increase. So House Rent Indices could be seen as a measure of changes in prices of housing in slums also.

Base:1973-74=100
House Rent Indices (Source: BBS)

Certainly, for slum dwellers the rent of accommodation has also gone up. I have recently done a little survey  on rickshaw pullers about their daily earnings and expenses. I found that a rickshaw puller pays between Tk3000-5000 as house rent to reside in this city. That means a rickshaw puller has to pay between 25% and 41.67% of his monthly earnings on house rent.

The census of slums 2014 also tells that 61.4% of slum dwellers live in slums popped up in govt lands whereas 32.32% of slum dwellers live in slums erected on own lands in Dhaka North City Corporation. In contrast,  Dhaka South City Corporation offers a completely different picture. 74.94% of slum dwellers live in slums built on own land whereas 19.66% of slum dwellers live in slums constructed on government lands.

Vast portion of rent money ended into the pockets of people whose income may not contribute to national economy and wellbeing of the mass.

This is where City Corporations can step in and play a bigger role to assuage the housing problem of people perched on the lower ladder of income. City Corporations hold the authority to collect holding taxes, to set up bazars, to demolish illegal structures under its area and to issue rickshaw licenses.

So it is unbelievable that a certain quarter making huge bucks every month by setting up illegal facilities and exploiting the village folks while keeping the City Corporations in the dark.

The upcoming mayors can take cue from private sector housing initiative. Foreign investors with their local partners are unfolding accommodation packages for bachelors and students at an affordable price. Charitable organizations are also setting up affordable hostels for working women all across Bangladesh. These are examples that need to be replicated.

City Corporations can liaise with government and private organizations that have empty  lands scattered across the city to make good use of the lands , fending off the influence of bad quarters that collect unabated rents. City Corporations can then build arrays of housing facilitates, maybe makeshift, targeting the informal sector laborers, with the assistance from donors and other housing companies.

Benefits are two-pronged: cash-strapped City Corporations will have a steady stream of revenue and have a close tab on the informal sector labor force; for an informal worker, a significant reduction of housing expenses and a safe accommodation during his stint in the city.

Reducing the housing cost for lower income group has tremendous impact on improving their economic conditions. If a rickshaw puller's housing expenditures at Dhaka is lowered to 10% or 15% of his monthly earnings, then it will contribute to augment his monthly income. This retained / increased earnings will be spared for more income generating activities like rearing cows or share cropping.

Another group that will be benefitted from this initiative is the utility companies. As the City Corporations will take the onus of providing housing to lower income group, there will be a curb in system loss due to misuse of electricity, gas and water. City Corporations may offer these utilities or provide alternatives.


For various political reasons, previous city administrators overlooked this important group of the urban economy. It only pushed them towards the clutches of sharks and exploiters. New city administrators should spare no time to take notice of roles this group of workers plays in urban economy and take drastic steps to unpack an array of policies to address their housing woes.

Truth Chalantika Slum Fire Left Behind

A huge conflagration consumed part of one of Dhaka's biggest slum. Chalantika Slum, known by the place it is located, was literally empty as most of its residents went to villages on the occasion of Eid and the rest went to garment factories.  Luckily no loss of life was registered.


Initial damage estimates, surfaced on the press, insinuate that 20000 houses were gutted down by the fire. The slum was erected on the lands of National Housing Authority.

Press reports and my personal encounters with some victims revealed that damaged section of slum generated no less than Tk12000000 as rents , shared by political stalwarts.  In addition, they collected utility bills worth Tk 15000000, tiny part of which fill the coffers of utility companies. Some of the victims had been residing there  for more than a decade.

I went there to see myself the damage the fire inflicted to the slum. I noticed only part of the slum sustained damages and a huge part remained unscathed. It is almost hidden in the jungle of residential buildings, garment factories, mosques and markets. New apartment blocs are being constructed in the adjacent areas.

This slum fire also laid bare the amount of fortune a single slum generates to a certain quarter. Many of the victims are rickshaw puller, day laborer and RMG workers.

I talked to a rickshaw puller who told me about a shop keeper who lost all his savings kept in an iron chest. Another man living in adjacent residential quarter lost clandestine wealth of Tk 10 million that he had given to his maid servant to keep it in a safe place in the slum where it is difficult for the law enforcement authorities to conduct raid. Having heard of the fire, the man had a severe cardiac arrest.

I have no idea before that a slum could be used for so many different purposes.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) did slum surveys in 1986 , 1997 and 2014. In the last survey it was found that both num number of slum and slum dwelling household increased many times. In  1997 there were 1579 slums in Dhaka. In 2014, both the city corporations had 2394 slums in. 2014.  In 2014, 2232114 people lived in slums across Bangladesh. Obviously this number has gone up by this time. In Dhaka, number of slum dwelling population was 594 861 in 2014. This number has also increased in the last 5 years. 

Number of Slum. Red=1997, Green=2014. (Source:BBS Slum Survey 2014)
Main Occupation of Slum Population in 2014 (in percentage) (Source:BBS Slum Survey 2014)

The 2014 survey also divulged that main occupations of slum dwelling population were garment worker, rickshaw puller, micro businessman, services , construction worker, transport worker etc. Informal sector profession constitutes a large part of slum dwelling population's occupation. Evidently informal sector contributes to a great extent to the slum economy.

Another finding of this survey was that number of slums are higher in Dhaka, Chattogram and Gazipur where wages for day laborers and rickshaw pullers are much higher than other cities. Moreover, garment factories are also concentrated in these key cities.

Percentage Distribution of Households in Slum by locality in 2014. (Source:BBS Slum Survey 2014)

Now if we stick to the 2394 slums in 2014 and assume that each slum generates Tk 1 crore per month , then that number of slums alone could generate Tk 2394 crore per month! Adding clandestine trade income like narcotics business to slum rent will increase monthly revenue from each slum by manifolds. Bata with its more than 1000 sales centers across Bangladesh made a profit of only Tk 50 crore last year. Surprisingly, one single slum could alone yield that much money in one single month if we take into account narco money.

Moreover, slums also open up new alleys of revenues for this very quarter who lives off this undocumented wealth. A study conducted couple of years ago divulged that Tk 1350 crore are collected from footpaths of Dhaka every year. Many of these street vendors like construction workers and rickshaw pullers live in the slums. So part of the slum dwellers' earnings end up filling the coffers of  vested quarters. Furthermore, clandestine wealth generated by slums makes its way into the mainstream economy under the disguise of valid businesses. As bad money drives out good money, illegal wealth's entry into mainstream kills competition and consumer interests, pushes legal businesses into the corner and works as a stimulant to increase corruption and to encourage bad practices like tax evasion, forgery etc. This is how slum economy keeps alive rent seeking system that is part and parcel of anarchic politics, making our lives and livelihoods miserable and clipping the opportunities  for millions of Bangladeshis.

Keeping a close tab on this informal sector economy is quintessential to put an end to the ongoing practices. Specialized public and private organizations need to be involved in bringing slum economy into mainstream economy. A mix of existing and new financial services may be introduced to cater to the demand of slum dwellers so that they save and do transaction through these systems, lessening their dependence on existing insecure systems. Government and city corporations should step forward to provide cheap and safe accommodation to informal sector workforce. In exchange City Corporations or any specialized government body can collect the rents , much lower than the current ones. For cash strapped City Corporations this new source of revenue will scuttle its need for public fund and allow it to finance its own initiative. At the same time it will have a firm control over slum population and will regulate their activity to make the cities more livable and cohesive.

Chalantika slum fire is at the same time a wake up call for and a reminder to our policy makers and city administrators that for far too long greed and callousness of rent seekers have been hatching dangers to slum and adjacent areas. This cannot continue and time has come to mainstream the slum economy, warding off the influences of rent seekers and narco traders. Given the number of households residing in the makeshift shanties, improving living standards and livelihoods will remain an unfinished task without addressing the slum population.