Dhaka

Dhaka, Sanitation of urban lower-class life. Lipi (22), mother of a 1 month old baby lives in a one-room home with her husband Unous and her little sister and the new-born baby. This is there first baby. The house rent is two thousands Tk./Month and provides common sanitation and cooking facilities for it’s thirteen one room apartment’s 50+ residents of all ages. One tubewells in the last corner stands beside two common-latrines, a shower-place and a bed of old dirty wet slippery bricks for cleaning. At the center of this ‘L’ shaped, tin shaded semi-conceit structure remains the common kitchen with a double burner cooker and a common dumping place for kitchen waste. The latrine remains wet during the rainy season. The bathing place is aside the latrine, separated with a wall. The wall has got fungus and moss on the both sides. If it rains for quite a long, water stands on the narrow passage making it muddy. About 19.4% of the population living in Dhaka city, live in the slum and squatter① areas. Therefore, the environmental condition of these areas significantly affects the environment of entire Dhaka city. The water supply, sanitation, wastewater and solid waste disposal practices of these areas are very unhygienic. Lipi’s baby is only one month’s old and has been suffering for diarrhea for the past four days. She had been to ICDDRB with her baby and got the baby admitted but, got realized in the same being referred to the Sishu hospital. The baby is still suffering. The baby is rapidly loosing weight and is not in a condition to inject saline to maintain the rate of salt and water because of her tender age, explained the local BRACK health worker. The room Lipi lives in has a door and two ventilators for air passage with a dimension of ten feet by twelve feet. People living here are suffering from water infected diseases, skin problem and coughing. Lipi’s husband Unus (26), works in a shoe store for 12 hours and runs his mobile tea stall after evening. His earnings are not enough for a better home, he explained. Thousands others like Unus are struggling to earn in this urban work market of Dhaka. Majority of the population are related to physical works, such as Plumbers, shop kippers, workshop workers, Van drivers, vegetable business men, garment workers. These are the people who are running the flow of the city. They are not living on the slums in the typical definition but they are not even free from the hazards those were found in slum dwellers. These semi-conceit, tin shaded, rented slums are located in every municipal-ward of this city. The sanitation scenario in the extended part of Dhaka metropolitan area in compare to Dhaka municipal area is more disastrous.

①someone who settles on land without right or title