Slum people part of city life
Experts tell seminar
The urban poor otherwise known as slum dwellers are integral to city life and economy, and the government must not evict them on a wholesale scale without rehabilitation, urban experts said at a seminar yesterday.
Forced and wholesale eviction of slum dwellers is not acceptable anywhere in the world, said M Shahidul Ameen, an architecture professor at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet).
The government should finalise the draft national housing policy without delay, he told the seminar on "housing of the urban poor" in the capital's Public Works Department auditorium.
Coalition for Urban Poor organised it to mark World Habitat Day.
A resident of the capital's Bhola slum said eviction without rehabilitation meant displacement, financial loss, insecurity and uncertainty.
Nearly 40 lakh urban poor live in the capital and constitute half of its total population, while the country's total urban poor are 1.5 crore, said Centre for Urban Study Chairman Prof Nazrul Islam.
A senior urban planner feared that city life would fall apart if the slum dwellers were driven out.
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