Factors Affecting Slum Resettlement Projects in Bangladesh

Since independence in 1971, Bangladesh has been facing rapid urbanization and massive demographic explosion particularly in the capital city Dhaka. Scarcities of vacant lands, limited resources, high land value and high construction standard have created a serious housing shortage for the increasing population and Dhaka is experiencing a prolific growth of slums. In July 1998, Bangladesh Government initiated `Bhasantek Rehabilitation Project (BRP)' to construct multi-storey housing for slum dwellers and low income people. Ministry of Land of Bangladesh Government signed an agreement with private-developer North South Property development Limited in 2003 to manage this project. Around 3260 slum dwellers were evicted from the project site without any relocation to start the construction works in 2003. There were two types of apartments in the project, one for the evictee and scattered slum dwellers and other for the low income people. By 2010 only 20% of the project work was completed. Among the completed buildings, 288 apartments in 2 buildings were for the evictee and scattered slum dwellers. But no evictee slum dweller or even any slum dweller was found in these apartments during this study. Hence the resettlement project was failing. So the objective of this research was to identify the hindering factors that were inhibiting the displaced slum dwellers to be resettled in BRP and thus contribute to the field of slum resettlement projects of Dhaka city. Detailed objective encompassed finding answers to what extent apartments of BRP were affordable to the evictee slum dwellers, what were the physical and financial capitals the evictee slum dwellers accumulated in their slums after the eviction, how the project was carried out by the government in terms of planning and participation and finally identification of the factors that were considered by the evictee slum dwellers for making their decision for resettlement to their original location. This is an exploratory research following the strategy of holistic case study. Qualitative and quantitative methods were combined to find the facts. In-depth interview, focus group discussion and observation were used as primary research instruments and documents were used as secondary sources of information. Agrisystems' `Sustainable Livelihood Framework', `The Risk and Reconstruction Model' of Michael Cernea (1997) for resettling displaced populations, `Emergency to Development continuum linking poverty, vulnerability and timing of intervention' of CARE (1990) and Housing affordability measures were used to develop the conceptual framework. In-depth interviews were carried out with the evictee slum dwellers that were self rehabilitated in different slums close to the project area and also with the current occupants of BRP apartments. This research finding revealed that various interrelated factors were simultaneously hindering displaced slum dwellers for resettling in their original location. The first reason was that, the apartments of BRP were not affordable to the evictee slum dwellers from the financial and quality related aspects of housing affordability. This was negatively associated with the exploitation of private developer in absence of the control of government over the project. Secondly, the evicted slum dwellers accumulated capitals in their slum locations between the long time of eviction and project implementation. So they were reluctant to move to BRP apartments leaving their asset base. Thirdly, in absence of sufficient condition and lack of participation, the project lost its trust and became inaccessible for the evictee slum dwellers. So considering all of these hindering factors the displaced slum dwellers did not want to hamper their prevailing condition and excluded them from the resettlement project. Therefore for the success of such resettlement projects, many measures should be taken into consideration. Like, extensive research should be carried out on the project area and the target groups before any intervention. Financial model should be devised to ensure true affordability of the lowest income people by detailed survey on them. The restoration of the livelihood of the poor people in the resettlement area should also be considered seriously. The involvement of NGOs can be ensured to create the bridge between implementation authority and the target groups. Particularly the spontaneous participation of the target groups should be encouraged to remove the accessibility barriers between them.