A report by The Institute for Economics and Peace titled 'Ecological Threat Report 2022' paints a bleak picture of the living condition of Dhaka residents. It states that a third of the capital city's residents are bereft of reliable and safe piped drinking water. Water supplied by the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) is unsafe because of the presence of high quantities of solid waste that is not disposed of properly. Only about half of the 5,000 tonnes of waste generated is handled as per guidelines, whilst the rest ends up in water bodies. Of the cities surveyed in the report, eight megacities (including Dhaka) are considered to be unsustainable for decent living. Dhaka, unfortunately, has witnessed rapid urbanisation over the last few decades with around two thousand people arriving daily. With a physical area of 360 square kilometres and a population of approximately 22 million, it is one of the densely populated cities in the world.
Vulnerability to natural calamities and exposure to tough economic conditions have forced a large part of the population to migrate to urban centres, particularly Dhaka. The other factor that has contributed to the unsustainable population growth of the capital city is that more than 40 per cent of the formal jobs are based here. The persistent flow of people to Dhaka presents city planners with a multitude of challenges. Most notable is the lack of infrastructure. The city was never designed to house so many people. It was not envisaged that industrialisation would be city-centric either. Hence, it leaves little to imagination that agencies responsible to provide residents with clean, drinkable piped water have been failing consistently.
The volume of waste has soared in recent years because of rising population and increased economic activities. As we move from a low income country to a middle-income one, the increased economic activities have resulted in a hike in per capita income, which again has enhanced disposable incomes for the burgeoning middle class. Dhaka has become one of the fastest growing cities in the world and the data tell us that between 1990 and 2005, its population doubled from 6 million to 12 million. Currently, it stands above 22 million.
Waste is emerging as the single largest threat to clean water availability in Dhaka. Prudent measures need to be taken to handle this waste. Although some steps are visible in terms of waste collection, a lot more needs to be done in terms of segregating waste and their treatment. Dhaka's landfills are up to the brim with waste. Other mega cities have come up with innovative ways of handling waste like launching projects that turn waste to energy, and some cities in India have been recycling plastic waste and incorporating it in road construction. Waste needs to be tackled properly with appropriate treatment technologies, but at the end of the day, none of these measures will bear fruit unless mass transportation systems are set up like railway, metro rail, etc, so that economic migrants come to the city to work, but leave at the end of the working day to suburbs of the capital city. There will never be enough space to accommodate and cater to sanitation for millions of people in the constricted space where Dhaka is located.