Sunday, April 21, 2013
Compact townships promise to reduce urban congestion
Economists speak at the launch of Compact Township Foundation
Star Business Report
The tendency to hold on to ownership rights prevents the planned and controlled use of lands, setting the country back, economists said yesterday.
To accommodate the fast growing population, the country is losing 1-2 percent of agricultural land a year, Salim Rashid, chairperson of Compact Township Foundation, said at a seminar. The Foundation was launched yesterday. “How will the people be fed if this continues?” he said while presenting his keynote paper.Rashid, also a development economist, suggested urbanization in a decentralized way or on a compact township basis. “Not only are compact townships a solution to the problems of urbanization, floods, industrialization and agro-production, it would also help the nation achieve double-digit economic growth.”
A compact township is an agglomeration of houses, hospitals, schools, markets, rural industries and local government units that provide all basic services to a population of about 20,000 people.
.Akbar Ali Khan, an economist and former adviser to caretaker government, said a very pertaining challenge facing the country is in reconciling the huge population to the limited supply of land.
“Land is a fundamental concept in Bangladesh, but we hardly talk on this issue.” He cited a study in the US which said for every 12.5 people one hectare of land is needed for their non-agriculture needs.” In that context, for the 16 core people of Bangladesh the entire land area would have to be dedicated for non-agricultural needs. But, we are getting by — through hunching.” Bangladesh’s economic growth is in positive territory by quantity.” But if we think about the qualitative growth, it will be negative. And if we cannot relate the mass people with the limited land in planned way, it wouldn’t be long before the quantitative growth, too, trespasses to the wrong side of zero.” Khan cited the case of India, where apart from compact villages corporate villages are set up in a centralized manner.” But in our country the villages or the towns are all over the place.”
He said people’s unwillingness to let go of the land they inherited poses a major setback to establishing compact townships in Bangladesh.” This issue should be addressed first before proceeding further with the concept of compact townships,” Khan said, while calling for support from the private sector in applying the concept in Bangladesh. Rehman Sobhan, a noted economist and chairman of Centre for Policy Dialogue, too, called for decentralization, while touching on the thorny issue of people’s deep ties to ancestral lands.” It is a socio-political issue. During reallocation of lands and final settlement, people will invariably question who the decision maker is.”
Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, chairperson of BRAC Net and a former adviser to caretaker government, said there is no alternative to the compact township concept in Bangladesh.” The government should pore over the computerized records of existing lands to identify the cultivable lands, water bodies, forest lands and settlement areas.” However, decentralization must be accompanied with provincial government, he said.” Although Bangladesh is a small country in terms of land, it’s a big one in terms of population. For any little task we have to come to Dhaka.”
Jamilur Reza Choudhury, vice-chancellor of Asia Pacific University, proposed a strong rail network as an alternative to compact townships.” If we can introduce commuter trains, physical movement will be easier and less time-consuming. Rural-urban migration will drop as well.”
Mahbub Jamil, chairman of Singer Bangladesh, said: “All the activities are now centralized in Dhaka — it is a major reason for unplanned urbanization cantering the capital city.”
Sunday 21 April 2013
10pc growth is achievable through Compact Township
Maximum economic use of land, population coordination, facilitation of economic development, protection of arable land and discourage of urban migration would be attainable successfully through the compact township, speakers said here today at a programmer “Bangladesh could achieve 10 percent growth by implementing the compact township programme,” they added.
They made the remarks at the launching ceremony of Compact Township Foundation at CIRDAP auditorium. Dr Salim Rashid, chairperson of Compact Township (CT) Foundation, made a keynote presentation on the CT
In his presentation, Salim Rashid said a Compact Township (CT) is an agglomeration of houses, hospitals, schools, markets, rural industries and local governmental units with all basic services for about 20,000 people, and it would be largely self-governing and self-financing.
The size is small enough for traffic within the CT to be conducted by non-motorized vehicles and for motorized traffic to thus isolated from the CT itself, he added.
Professor Dr Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, Vice Chancellor of the University of Asia Pacific, spoke as chief guest with former adviser to the Caretaker Government Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury in the chair.
Eminent economist Rehman Sobhan, former adviser to the Caretaker Government Dr Akbar Ali Khan, SINGER Bangladesh chairman Mahbub Jamil and Prof Sarwar Jahan of BUET, among others, took part as discussants. Dr Abul Hossain, CT Foundation secretary general, gave welcome speech.
Jamilur Reza Chowdhury said urbanization is good for country’s economy and so far there is no alternative of urbanization toward development.“The Compact Township would be good tools for urbanization and it has a bright future in the country,” he added.
Rehman Sobhan emphasized on the relocation process for the compact township, as the relocation would be a big issue toward implementing the project.
Besides, property rights would also be a critical issue to share the resources in the compact township, he observed.
Akbar Ali Khan said the Compact Township would be implemented involving the government, NGOs, businessmen, private public partnership and voluntary organizations.
“We have to think in realistic way rather than the holistic approach to implement the compact township, as all the issues would not be possible to implement in the country,” he added. —BSS
Compact townships sought to stop loss of farm lands
Published : Sunday, 21 April 2013
Former caretaker adviser Akbar Ali Khan speaking at the formal launching ceremony of Compact Townships (CT) Foundation at CIRDAP Auditorium in the city Saturday. — Focus Bangla Photo Speakers on Saturday urged the government to make land records across the country computerized as well as frame physical plans for rural and urban areas to build compact townships (CTs).A compact township comprises houses, hospitals, schools, markets, rural industries and local governmental units with all basic services.
They also said the government should identify agricultural, wetlands and forests the country will need in 2050 and take necessary steps to preserve those for greater good of the country.
They made the suggestions at the formal launching ceremony of Compact Township Foundation at the CIRDAP auditorium in the city. The Bengali version of ‘Compact Township and the magic of 10 per cent growth’ was also launched on the day.
Asia Pacific University Vice Chancellor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury was present as the chief guest. Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan and former advisor to the caretaker government Dr Akbar Ali Khan were present on the occasion.
Keynote presenter Prof Salim Rashid, chairperson of the Compact Township (CT) Foundation said, “Bangladesh is losing almost one per cent of agricultural lands every year for horizontal growth in housing. Faster urbanisation is attracting more rural migrants. It makes urban areas less livable and less productive.”
He said: “The Compact Township is an agglomeration of houses, hospitals, schools, markets, rural industries and local governmental units with all basic services for about 20,000 people.”
“Full employment needs an additional 50 million jobs by 2050. If CT is introduced, it will help ensure accommodation with all modern facilities and stop loss of agricultural lands.”
He said: “About 4,500 CTs are needed for 90 million people. About 100 acres of land and $30-60 million are needed for each CT. If we can decentralise the offices from Dhaka and make it congestion free, the savings would allow setting up of 90-100 CTs per year, or 3,000 CTs plus by 2050.”
Prof Jamilur Reza Chowdhury said, “China and Korea have introduced the township model in 1970s and we can also accept it. The government too can make people aware of this model in our country.”
Mr Chowdhury said: “The population of Bangladesh will be 250 million by 2050 and proper management through compact township can help accommodate this big population.”
Prof Rehman Sobhan said, “The compact township is a time-befitting model. But long-term planning is needed to implement this.”Mr Sobhan said: “Implementation of this model should be started from the upazila level and it will be a modern system for development. People’s awareness is a must for execution of the model.”
Dr Akbar Ali Khan said: “The main weak point of our economy is imbalance of population and land. We will lose our agricultural lands if we want to set up schools, colleges and roads and accommodation like foreign countries across the world.”
Dr Khan said: “People are worried about the property rights. If we want to implement any model, we have to think properly. The government had taken such an initiative earlier but it failed more than cent per cent. So we have to do it through public-private partnership.”
He said people, businesses, local government and voluntary organisations can play an important role for implementation of compact township model. It is very good model, but it is not possible to implement properly initially.”
Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, chairperson BRAC Net, presided over the discussion meeting.