Housing in Bangladesh

Housing

Housing means providing our dwelling place. Housing is one of the basic needs of man. A man needs a house to keep his body and soul together. We live in houses in order to protect ourselves from heat and cold. Houses also protect us from rain and storm. Some people need houses to protect themselves from floods and wild animals as well. Houses keep us comfortable and happy. But the irony is that a large number of people of Bangladesh have no house of their own. House of different sizes and shapes: In Bangladesh all houses are not alike. There are houses of different sizes and shapes here. Some are big, some are small. Some houses have only one room. Some have many. The roofs of some houses are flat while those of other houses are sloping. People make the roofs slopping In order to let the rain water run away quickly. House building materials: In Bangladesh houses are made from different things. Here people build their houses with whatever things they can get easily. In villages most people build their houses with bamboo, rope, straw and mud. The richer section of people builds houses of corrugated iron sheet. In order to build such a house one needs the sheets of corrugated Iron, wood, nails and screws. Manifold problems in housing: The first thing that is needed to build a house is money. But the greater part of our people is poor and many of them have not the money to build houses to live in. Moreover, many poor people are landless. They have no land where to build houses. So, a certain percentage of our population are not only ill fed and Ill clad but also houseless. To provide dwelling houses to a vast population has become a Herculean task, which defies all attempts at solution. Secondly Flood visits our country almost every year. Flood water washes away or damages a lot of houses every year. The flood of 1988 and 1998 alone fully devastated 47 lakh houses and partly damaged 93 lakh houses. Thirdly, many people living by the side of the mighty Padma. The Meghna and the Jamuna lose their houses to the strong current and waves of these rivers. Fourthly as a result of enormous is consumption of firewood for cooking. our forests are losing so many of their trees that there is an acute shortage of wood and timber required for house building purpose. Fifthly, the problems have become more acute in urban areas. Service holders spend a major portion of their earnings for accommodation purpose. A good number of homeless people live in make-shift slums, in the streets, railway stations and in railway wagons. Some relieving measures recently, government has taken a number of steps to solve housing problems. The project Ashrayan Prokalpa is a popular one. Many rootless people are getting shelter in the housing project in different parts of the country. Under Cluster Village Programmes a good number of landless and homeless families are provided. In urban areas an ambitious project to build multi-storied houses to give accommodation to families of small means Is being carried out. Conclusion: Housing problem is the burning problem for Bangladesh and calls for immediate solution. If all the citizens of the country are not provided with necessary shelter, our efforts for national development will prove futile. Proper planning for housing both in the towns and villages may mitigate this problem.