Life as it is on hill slopes

Thousands of people continue to live on the hill slopes in Chittagong city risking lives as the authorities concerned are yet to come up with any permanent solution to relocate them.

Like every year, the district administration as part of their effort to temporarily shift the dwellers disconnected utility connections of around hundred families in Mathijharna area on July 25 so that they would move out of their houses.

But while visiting the area recently, this correspondent found that the families are still living there.

“It's almost impossible to find a place at such a cheaper price,” said a resident, seeking anonymity. The rickshaw-puller said his rent was Tk 1,000, and also ruled out the risk of landslides although a nearly 60 feet steep hill stood beside his house.

Within a week of snapping of their utilities, the residents managed connections from adjacent houses, locals informed.

Visiting Tigerpass, Mathijharna, Lalkhabazar, Akbershah, Bayezid Shantinagar, Amin Colony, Majhir Ghona and Roufabad, this correspondent found thousands of low income people continue to live in their shanties built on the foot of the hills.

“The government only gets busy during the rainy seasons, which is not a permanent solution,” said Prof Edris Ali of Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon Chittagong unit. After 2007, when 127 people were killed in landslides in Chittagong, the government formed a hill management committee. But no permanent actions were taken to relocate the dwellers and save the hills from their clutches as they built houses cutting part of the hills, said experts.

Last year, eight people including six children were killed in a hill slide; the death toll was 11 in 2008, 17 in 2011, 28 in 2012, and two in 2013 in the risky hill areas, according to reports published in newspapers. “So far there have been no initiatives to relocate us,” said Mohammed Jewel, 20, who grew up in Shantinagar slum in Baizid and showed the spot where a woman was killed and her father-in-law injured in February 2014, while cutting hills to extend their house, next to his.

Abul Bashar, 60, whose house is adjacent to a half-cut hill, said they were living there for 40 years and landslides never occurred.

Saiful Islam, at Amin Colony in Bayezid, said they were safe and lived quite far from the hills. At the same time, he said that his house was adjacent to the one where three children were killed last year.

Chittagong District Administration last year evicted 641 families in drives from June 14 to July 22, but most of the families returned afterwards, according to a CDA report.

While speaking to The Daily Star recently, Chittagong Deputy Commissioner Mesbah Uddin also admitted that most of the evicted families returned to their houses due to cheaper rents. “We are planning to permanently rehabilitate them and also talked to the mayor for their relocation,” he said.