Impact of Involuntary Resettlement on Quality of Life of Relocated People in the Eastern Fringe of Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Abstract

Involuntary resettlement and quality of life are one of the important themes of research. Real estate is considered as one of the most lucrative sectors of business, and land market is extensively controlled by influential groups of private real estate developers. Because of high land price in central city areas of Dhaka, the majority of the land developers are attracted in the fringe areas of this city where vast tracts of wetland and agricultural land are available at lower price. In many cases, local people are exploited by the developers and forced to sell their land. The relocation of these local people in different areas of the country can be identified as involuntary resettlement of people. The objective of this study is to explore the quality of life of the relocated people in their present and previous locations from socioeconomic perspectives. This study is based on the information collected from relocated families who had to move from their original residence because of four land development projects of Dhaka. Approximately, 3,920 families were identified as relocated families from these project areas. About 350 relocated household heads were surveyed by a prestructured questionnaire. This research used snowball sampling for the questionnaire survey. A set of indicators were studied to assess and compare the present and past status of the socioeconomic condition of relocated families. Data were collected on housing condition, services, social network, occupation, income and expenditure, landownership, etc., for fulfilling research objective. It was found from the research findings that over all socioeconomic condition of the relocated people have been degraded from their previous status. At present, about 67.7% of the local people who were the owner of land in previous locations do not own any land at present. Similarly, local peoples’ occupation structure was changed significantly at their current location. Their housing condition and access to utility facilities are also deteriorated. Social network plays a vital role to enhance the quality of life of people. According to the respondents, they had lost their social network as they moved out from their original location.