3gb 2025, 12:33 Urban planning in Bangladesh Chalenges and opportunltles | The Business Standard
THE
BUSINESS
STANDARD
MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2025
The process of urbanisation in Bangladesh was relatively lowcompared to
other Asian countries
Muhammad Rashidul Hasan
27 January, 2022, 10:50 am
Last modified: 27 January, 2022, 01:17 pm
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Infographic: TBS
The 21t century is becoming an urban century. In 2008, humankind
crossed a socio demographic milestone for the first time in history by
baving half of its population living in the urban areas. Urban population is
projected to become 66o of the total population of the world by 2Oso.
Bangladesh is not detached from this historicmetamorphosis.
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Urban planning in Bangladesh: Challenges and opportunities | The Business
The process of urbanisation in Bangladesh was relatively low Compared to other
Astan countries. However, thecountry bas experienced a remarkable progress of
urbanisation and urban growth in terms of increasing proportion of urban
population and urban centres since the country's independence in 1971. Urban
population growth rate has always been higher than the national population
growth rate since 1901.The level of urbanisation is now 28% which is projected
to become s6% in 2050.
The number of urban population is projected to become a staggering 12.44
million in 2050. Bangladesh's capital Dhaka is now the 11" largest megacity in
the world and projected to become the 6th largest megacity in 2030 with a
population of 27.37 million. This entire extreme scenario poses serious major
Socioeconomic and infrastructural transformation of the country with other
related changes.
The consequences of urbanisation for a country are not given. Urbanisation
holds both promises and problems for a country and features that come to
dominate depend on the nature and efficiency of policy engagement with the
urban agenda. Bangladesh is one of the countries of South Asia that is
experiencing very rapid urbanisation. Itscities are growing more than twice the
rate of rural areas and this rapid growth of urbanisation is expected to continue
tillBangladesh transitions from a low income to a middle income country. More
than 30% of the total population living in urban areas is contributing the lion's
share to the nationalGDP. Consequently, urbanisation has become synonymous
with development. This has been manifested by a corresponding increase in the
number of urban centres in the country. Inthe distribution of urban population,
the large cities have absorbed the major share, the capital Dhaka being one of
the densely populated cities in the world. Secondary towns or municipalities of
the country are also growing at a rapid pace as well.
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025, 12:33
Urban planning in Bangladesh: Challenges and opportunities | The Business Standard
This concept requires an urban place to possess specific types of urban
characteristics, such as established street patterns, contiguously aligned
buildings and public services such as sewer system, piped water supply, electric
lighting, police stations, hospitals, schools, courts of law and a ocal
transportation system. Urbanisation has favoured the concentration of economic
activities, capital and people in cities of developing countries like Bangladesh.
This has led to pressure and high demand for shelter and other facilities within
and at the peripheries of the urban areas. The state of the physical environment,
particularly in the cities of developing countries, is a major global concern. This
is due to the fact that activities man undertakes have spatial implication and
thus the environment is mainly of man's making. In reality, many physical
problems that exist in urban areas reflect our own inability as urban population
to effectively control growth and development.
30 06/2025, 12:33 opportunities | The Business Standard
Orban planning in Bangladesh: Challenges and
A
city is more than a collection of buildings and streets; itembodies the ideas of?
progress, of betterment, of success. of construction and also the mirror
companions -failure, disappointment, tragedy, hopelessness and destruction. It
is therefore the duty of an urban planner to take adequate measures to
counteract these negatives with the positives. This, however, requires strong
institutions. Cities must be prepared to accommodate new residents- this
requires more forward thinking measures like updating urban planning
regulations to enabledensity and toavert demand pressures for scarce housing
and land to bid up prices excessively. While there is the need to house the
increasing number of people in the urban areas, how this housing is arrived at is
a matter of concern for physical planners. To ensure orderly development of new
housing and the supporting infrastructure on the one hand and expansion
and/or extension, there has to be effective and efficient development control. A
development control strategy helps shape transformation of the urban built
environment, particularly with regard to the renewal of dilapidated inner city
areas by regulating private investment decisions on land.
Unfortunately, the growth process of most settlements, especially in developing
countries including Bangladesh, has panned out in a reverse order. Therefore,
the normative sequence of planning-servicing-building-occupation has now
been replaced with occupation-building-servicing. This has led to situations
where planning has lagged considerably behind development.
Consequences of Rapid Urbanisation
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Urban planning in Bangladesh Challenges and opportunities | The
Business Standard
Due to rapid increase of population in the urban area, direct pressure is visible
On the housing sector., As the poor cannot afford the average rent of the
houses,
they shift from centralarea to urban fringe area in substandard houses and they
build their houses in the government-owned vacant land, roadside spaces, and
pivately owned vacant land and create slums and squatter settlements. The
density of population in the slums and squatter settlements is very high,
Creating environmental problems. Transport is another big problem. The general
Passenger moves from one place to another by rickshaws due to which
unauthorised rickshaws are gradually increasing. Due to the unplanned road
System, poor traffic and road transport management system, the citizens suffer
from traffic jams. Due to rapid increase of urban population, the labour force is
also increasing rapidly, and as a result, unemployment and underemployment is
a common feature. Thus, a section of the urban low income group of people,
both male and female, is unemployed.The slums and squatters settlements do
not have health and sanitary facilities and the health condition of the dwellers is
extremely poor, especially the children and female members who are suffering
from diarrhoea, respiratory tract infections, fever and various other diseases.
Due to continuous in-migration of the illiterate rural poor, the total numbers of
the urban illiterates have gone up, and demand for educational institutions have
increased. As a result, all existing educational institutions have become
overcrowded. Utility services like sanitation, sewerage, drainage, water supply,
garbage disposal etc. are highly unsatisfactory in most of the low income
settlements. Although in big cities of the country a garbage collection and
disposal system exists, the effort is not sufficient.
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Business Standard
Urban planning in Bangladesth Challenges and opportunities | The
Rapid Urbanisation and need for planning intervention
Urbanisation is an inevitable circumstance which has both positive and adverse
adverse impacts, poverty, gross inequality, high unemployment,
under employment, overcrowded housing, proliferation of slums and squatter
settlements, deteriorating environmental conditions, inadequate supply of
drinking water, high incidence of diseases, overcrowding in schools and
hospitals, overloading in public transport, increasing traffic jam, road accidents,
violence, crimes and social tension etc. are the common features in our
country.
In a rapidly urbanising situation,physical expansion of urban areas cannot cope
with the population increase. Urban land is a valuable asset and day by day
the
land shortage is getting acute. Thus every parcel of land should be used in a
planned manner and its optimum utilisation must be ensured.
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2025, 12:33 Jhan planning in Bangladesh: Challenges and opportunitiles | The Business Standard
The secondary towns of the country are growing without any physical and
development plan. Smallscale industries are also developing in many of these
secondary cities and market places. Only four metropolitan cities of the country
- Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi -- have development authorities and
theirown master plan, but with the changing scenario, the traditional approach
of the master plan is not effective for planned development.
Urban local governments should be strengthened with appropriate power,
resources, and technical capabilities, so that they can take responsibility for a
wide range of planning, infrastructure provision and essential household
delivery functions.
Development controlthrough planning applications
To ensure organised spatial development, physical planning makes sure that
urban activity is properly directed. Disorganised development has cost and
health implications, and development control is the planning apparatus that
forestalls both. Development control has been long used as the tool to control
and manageurban growth in many parts of the world, including Bangladesh. It
is the basicway by which the state arbitrates the use and development of land in
order to implement local and national planning policies. Development control
processes provide the avenue for members of the public to come into contact
with local planning authorities to explain their views in decision making in
regard to development.
There is a purpose to which development control is practised. The purpose of
development control is part of the wider purpose of town and country planning,
and ultimately environmental planning. It is said that at the highest level of
generalisation, development controlis toensure efficient and effective land use
planning that satisfies public interest.
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The Business
Challenges and opportunities |
Bangladesh:
roan planning in
30/06/2025, 12:33
which physical development permits
Development control is a processthrough granted submissions,
via the
are
or building plan approvals for development plan applications. 1It is a
building
assessment, registration and processing of healthy
ensure that an orderly, conducive and
Statutory measure to other
for living, working and recreation, among
environment is created
settlements. For development control to be
legitimate activities in human
and up-to-date development plans,
possible there must be approved
development
and sanctions. Development control hinges on
enforcement
According to Philip (2007), master plans, zoning plans, detailed
regulations.
Planning Standards, usage of buildings, Floor Area Ratio,
development plans,
number of stories and parking
set-backS, open spaces, building height,
requirements; for various categories of developments
on land and buildings are
what comprise development regulations.
Development control is executed by development authorities, local government
bodies and related agencies which apply certain approved procedures to ensure
and
that development is effectively and efficiently controlled. The institutions
theprocedures employed are however within the remit of legal provisions which
provide the authority for the development control function.
Generalisation on major problems of Development Control Mechanism at
urban local government
High price and the small parcel of land: Municipal areas attract people from
its surroundings instead of employment, business, communication and other
basic services like education, health care etc. that's why the land price is
relatively higher than other places. Furthermore, land parcels are too small
malking application of construction rules a challenging job for planners.
Page 8 of 14
025, 12:33 Urban planning in Bangladesh: Challenges and opportunitles | The Business Standard
have any
Lack of master plan: A greater number of the paurashavas does not
Master Plan to guide the development. On the other hand, the municipality
received the
which has a Master Plan cannot implement it because it has not
implementation or
gazette notification. The plan does not set a time frame for its
period ends and a
validity. So the authority is unable to conceive when the plan
new plan to be prepared to replace it.
responsive enough about the benefit of
LaCk of awareness: Citizens are not
following construction rules
planned urbanisation. Because of that,they are not
which is leading to haphazard development in the municipal area.
do not have sufficient
Inadequate monitoring: As the municipalities
development activities properly. On the
manpower, they cannot monitor the
enforcement agencies to talke any
other hand, they are dependent on other law
against illegal establishments. Moreover, the high influence of local
action
politics interferes in the monitoring process.
UDD, Planning
National-Lo cal mix-up: National level agencies like
Commission, etc. have been created to oversee the issues
of the whole country.
the matter of planned
But in practice, they had seen to not be performing due to
development in the urban areas of Bangladesh although
some major urban
centres receive some support.
Lack of skilled manpower: A qualified planner is not yet posted in the
district and
organogram of the development framework of divisional,
municipality due to the lack of awareness of political leaders and top
bureaucrats in the administration.
Slow planning progress: It is notable that most of the plans are not completed
within time. The quality of the completed projects is also questionable.
Lack of public participation: There is very little to no scope for public
participation in the currentplanning process.
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and opportunities | The Business
Bangladesh:Challenges
3006/2025, 12:33
Urban planning in
It is reported that
various authoritie
Corruption and lack of transparency:
corruption and thus showsa low
level of transparency.
atected by
planning related laws In Bangladesh and their
Major weaknesses in
reforms
planning and
There is the existence of a number of legal provisions for urban
building control in Bangladesh. For proper planning and building control such
provisions are inadequate and weak to implement and guide the planning
activities, practically at the field level. Due to rapid urbanisation, the big cities of
Bangladesh are overwhelmed by the presence of slums andsquatters. But there
are no slums and squatters settlements improvement or upgrading clauses in
these planning laws. To tackle the existing situation there is a need for the
formulation of appropriate legislation or amendment of the existing one. The
main wealknesses in the planning laws and legislation are highlighted below:
The existing statute is not easy to understand. The main objective of planning
law is to provide rules of society to govern private property rights in the
interest of the community, which needs the statutory system to be precise
and more clear;
" In the administrative machinery of Bangladesh, there is a lack of trained
manpower. Therefore, a relatively simple planning law should be introduced
to provide the planning and development activities;
" Sometimes similar powers have been provided to the different agencies in
same urban area, which creates problems to implement the planning and
development programme;
" There is no independent planning section/department in the planning bodies
toprepare and implement the master plan and development project; and
Paurashava ordinance empowered the Paurashava authority to prepare and
implement the master plan but the authority cannot do the job, due to lack of
Town Planner and other technical manpower in the organisation.
Conclusion
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Urbanplanning in Bangladeah
Challenges and opportunities | The
rbanPlanning practises in Bangladesh Business Standard
continue
uncoordinated manner. At present several ministries, in a decentralised and
organisations are involved in urban planning and urbandivisions, agencies and
of the country. Lack of a suitable system development activities
of urban planning with institutions at
different levels is standing as a constraint to
planned development of urban
areas in Bangladesh. Different levels of urban local government units
exist
within the urban sector in adecentralised framework but lack of
coordination
and linkage make theurban sector inefficient and ineffective. Involvement of
the
planning profession in the decision-making for systematic functioning of
planned development and efficient functioning of the urban sector is almost
non-existent in Bangladesh. There exist serious inconsistencies in the legal basis
of urban governance especially of the Paurashava in Bangladesh.
Traditional formalist type of master plan is still in practice in Bangladesh and in
most of the cases unsuccessful in implementation because of the following
reasons:
Over-ambitious,
" Lack proper legal and administrative framework,
Inadequate technical skills and financial resources,
" Unrealistic assumptions, emanating from the foreign base,
" Lack of participation by the people in the planning process,
" Lack of coordination between planning and financing agencies,
" Shortage of trained personnel.
To overcome the existing problems, proper urban policy is required for
empowering the urban local government institutions. The fragmental decision
making process currently being practiseda at the national level should be
brought under a single umbrella organisation for effective role playing for urban
planning and development control at various units of local government.
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Urban planning in Bangladesh: Challenges and opportunities | The Business
Muhammad Rashidul Hasan. Sketch: TBS
Muhammad Rashidul Hasan is the head and associate professor of the
Department of Urban &Regional Planning, Chittagong University of Engineering
&Technology (CUET).
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