According to a new study, overpopulation in Dhaka is causing huge economic loss and making the city unliveable.

The study, carried out by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), highlighted that almost 8 per cent of all jobs in Bangladesh are concentrated in Dhaka city, and 40 per cent concentrated in the greater Dhaka region, which includes the cities of Gazipur and Narayanganj. Such an extreme concentration of people and economic activities in the capital is impacting heavily on the national economy, according to findings.

The study also found that 31.9 per cent of Bangladesh’s urban population live in Dhaka, whereas the country’s major cities – those with over a million inhabitants – contain only 3.5 per cent of the urban population.

In the last 10 years, Dhaka’s population has increased by more than 50 per cent.

Another issue of major concern in Bangladesh is that overpopulation is preventing the relief of urban poverty. The study shows that from 2010 to 2016, the extreme poverty rate in rural areas declined from 21.1 to 14.9 per cent, but there was virtually no change in the urban poverty rate. Additionally, the traffic congestion that arises from this huge concentration of people is causing economic losses amounting to 2.9 per cent of the country’s GDP.

The BBS study concluded that not only is the population burden on Dhaka leading to worsening living conditions, but it is also causing significant economic losses, as well as environmental damage.

Many economists believe that the government needs to urgently develop other regions of the country in order to remove some of the population overload from Dhaka. Some decentralisation measures, including locating the government’s own agencies – most of which are in Dhaka – to outside of the capital, would go some way to relieving the problem.

Whatever steps the government takes, the common consensus is that they need to be taken urgently, before Dhaka’s overpopulation situation worsens and the city becomes almost uninhabitable.

At the time of writing, the population of Bangladesh sits at approximately 176.386 million, a 31 per cent increase since 2000. The fertility rate (average number of births per mother) is currently 2.2. The population of Dhaka is currently estimated to be 24.653 million.

Submitted by Friends of Retha


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