Bangladesh built flats for Dhaka slum dwellers. Some have little interest in moving

It is too costly for them to live in rented flats, where they need to pay utility bills and service charges

Fifty-five-year-old Badul Begum has been living in a slum near the Baunia embankment in Dhaka for the last 30 years with her grandson and his wife. 

She, along with 299 other fellow slum dwellers and their families from the same Mirpur-11 neighbourhood, was allocated flats at three newly-built apartment blocks back in August 2021. 

The project, commissioned by the National Housing Authority or NHA, was initiated in line with the National Housing Policy-2016 to resolve the housing crisis for slum dwellers in the capital. 

Badul, however, is not keen on moving to the shiny new buildings, even after paying Tk 9,000 as a security deposit after being allocated the flat. 

Why?

“I simply can’t afford it now. I no longer work due to health complications, and my grandson is the sole bread earner in the household. As budgets are tight now, we are not moving there,” she said. 

The flats have state-of-the-art facilities with two bedrooms, a kitchen and one bathroom. Each apartment block has an individual community hall, two elevators, solar electricity panels, a power generator substation, wide walkways and so on. 

The authorities believed this would be a dream come true for the slum dwellers who were lucky enough to get a decent place to live. 

It turns out there were other things which were not considered before allocation. 

The rent was fixed at Tk 4,500 per month, excluding gas, electricity, water, and service charges. With the inflation and price hike, each family now must pay around Tk 10,000 every month to live in the flat. 

The 300 families used to live rent-free in their slums, and they were under the impression that they were being “rehabilitated” instead of being offered a place to live with decent facilities at low rent. 

Secondly, the service charges for security, elevators and common electricity use were fixed at Tk 1,400, on top of individual gas, water and electricity charges. 

Several slum dwellers said the Tk 1,500 on top of individual utility charges was the final straw that killed their backs. 

Some also pointed the finger at the rising costs of LP Gas, which the residents must subscribe to for cooking if they choose to move to the flats. 

At slums, as Badul described, they never use LPG-run stoves because of the cost. Instead, they buy firewood or collect twigs for cooking in traditional homemade stoves.

THE LEGEND OF A CHRISTIAN PADRE 

Mizanur Rahman was one of the handful of slum dwellers who had moved to the apartment blocks after being allocated a flat. 

He claimed that a Christian padre donated the piece of land near the Baunia embankment for slums to be built for rough sleepers back in the 80s. 

“We never paid a dime for rent,” he said. 

Mosammat Ruma, who was also allocated a flat in the apartment blocks but opted to live in the slum known as Kalabagan slum, shared the same history. 

“We never paid rent there [the slum], but now we have to. The rent here alone is eating up the bulk of our income,” Ruma said. 

Ten other current and former slum dwellers who were allocated a flat at the apartment blocks made the same claim. 

However, NHA’s executive engineer for Dhaka Region-1, Joarder Tabedun Nabi, refuted the claim. 

“In Kalabagan slum, they used to pay at least Tk 4,000 for two rooms. Here they are paying a little extra, excluding the mandatory utility bills,” he said. 

bdnews24.com could not independently verify the claims and the legend about the padre. 

THE ‘REHABILITATION’ CONUNDRUM  

According to the slum dwellers who bdnews24.com talked to, the message the NHA project officials gave them was filled with confusion from the get-go. 

Billal Hossain, the owner of a small LPG cylinder shop, claimed the officials explained the programme using the term “rehabilitation”. 

Some other interviewees also confirmed that they were told that they would be “rehabilitated and would not have to pay any rent”. 

“Now, we’re being told that not only rent, but we also have to pay for utilities, which we can’t afford. What’s the point of these flats if our next generation also has to keep paying rents and utilities here,” Billal said. 

The term “rehabilitation”, however, was never used in the official documents for the project, NHA’s Nabi confirmed. 

“This project was never meant for rehabilitating slum dwellers. Furthermore, even if someone at some point used the term, it was wrong. The prime minister herself said these former slum dwellers would have to pay the rent, either weekly, fortnightly or monthly.” 

According to him, the letting contract will be voided if the flat dwellers fail to pay the rent for three consecutive months.

THE DEADLOCK 

Authorities believe that the floodgate of people with low or no income relocating to Dhaka will be opened if the precedents of these flats allocated permanently to the slum dwellers are set.    

“We won’t be able to handle such pressure of people hoping to get a decent place to live for free. Instead, the government encourages people to return to their roots with an offer of a permanently allocated rent-free home and food under the Ashrayan project. 

Ashrayan is a government-funded development project to build homes and give ownership of the land and the house to the landless and homeless people in agriculture-based rural areas. 

Mohsin Beppari, another former Kalabagn slum dweller who was allocated a flat, said the authorities must also consider their situation. 

“They [the authorities] should ask us to pay either the rent or the utility bills. We can’t afford both, period. Alternatively, they can ask us to pay in instalments so we can one day own these flats. The reason why we were living in the slum is that we could not afford the rents and charges like others. They can’t expect us to pay everything with our minimal income,” he said. 

[Writing in English by Adil Mahmood]