With Dhaka’s population growing exponentially ever year, it has become imperative that the government truly tackle this issue which is rapidly going out of hand.
Every year, more than half a million people enter this city. But is the city prepared to take them in?
By all accounts, it is not. This not only affects those who are already living in the city, but those who come in looking for better opportunities.
This continuous cycle has resulted in us seeing worse traffic, fewer resources, more flooding, more pollution every year.
And it does not stop there. Every year, Bangladesh also loses 235 hectares of farmland every year because of the rapid rate of urbanisation we have experienced in the last few decades.
But the solution is simple: Decentralisation.
Rural-to-urban migration continues to be at an all-time high and it is high time that the government addressed this issue head on.
By some estimations, Dhaka will become the second most densely populated city in the world by 2020. And we have to stop this from happening before it is too late.
Decentralisation is in the national interest and if the government gets behind this, the entire nation will come to benefit.
This has continued to happen as a result of the Dhaka-centric manner in which the country has continued to function, leading to more and more factories, headquarters, and government bodies moving to the capital.
At this rate, Dhaka will become inhabitable.
There is no way we can go on straining Dhaka’s resources in this way. We need to completely rethink the way this country has been functioning, so that our focus shifts away from the capital and to other places in the country.
