Planned Urbanisation
Controlled land use is urgency: Speakers
The government must enforce stringent control over land use across the country immediately for future urbanisation and durable development, eminent planners and top officials said at a city workshop yesterday.
A national land use plan is the urgency in all future economic activities, Kondaker Salahuddin, chief engineer, Rajdhani Unnyan Kartripakkha (Rajuk), said in his keynote paper.
Planned and compact housing facilities must take place on controlled land use across the country while utilisation of railway and waterways and construction of metro rail in the capital without delay are vital to meet transportation demand, he said.
The Rajuk engineer said poor housing and mass transport facility, air and water pollutions and utter want of civic amenities like open space and playgrounds in major cities massively contributed to low quality of urban life and diseases like pulmonary and respiratory complications.
Dr Takao Toda, chief representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jaica), said long-term plan, priority on people, and integrated approach were crucial for future urbanisation in Bangladesh.
Successful urbanisation is not possible without paying attention to local towns and rural areas, he said. “Think about rural areas, whenever thinking of urbanisation".
He urged Bangladesh's policy-makers to learn from Japanese mistakes in urbanisation and avoid those in the plan of building future cities.
Abu Alam Md Shahid Khan, secretary to the local government division, said population control would be one of the foremost preconditions for planned urbanisation during the next 50 years.
Mubasshar Hussein, president of Institute of Architects Bangladesh, said discussion on planned urbanisation had been going on for past 20 years without implementation, which largely depended on politicians.
Half of Dhaka city area remains under the control of the armed forces, and regulatory bodies like Rajuk have no authority over it, he said, adding that this area included three golf courses and various commercial set-ups. "Planned Dhaka city is never doable if situation goes on in this fashion”.
Md Nurul Huda, chairman of Rajuk, said his organisation had proposed a project for a new Detailed Area Plan for Dhaka (DAP) for the period of 2016 to 2035.
Urbanisation rate in Bangladesh is nearly three times higher than that of population growth with 24 million urban people in 1996, 31 millions five years later and an estimated 80 million by the year 2020 in the capital, divisional towns, municipalities and upazila headquarters as presented in the keynote.
Dr Khondaker Showkat Hossain, secretary to the housing and public works ministry, which organised the workshop at the public works department, chaired the programme while Abdul Mannan Khan, state minister for housing and public works, spoke among others.
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