DR. AKHTER HUSAIN CHAUDHURY

During 1950s a town planning cell of the

than ‘Construction and Building Depart

ment-C&B’ (later splited to PWD,RHD) of

the Ministry of Public Works used to do the

functions of Town Planning.

Its major contributions include,

Azimpur and Motijheel Govt.Colony

Tejgaon Industrial Area and

Motijheel Commercial Area

Dhaka Improvement Trust (Present RAJUK), 1956

Housing and Settlement Directorate (HSD) 1958

Chittagong Development Authority 1959

Khulna Development Authority 1961

Urban Development Directorate (UDD) in 1965.

Rajshahi Town Development Authority (RTDA) 1976

National Housing Authority (NHA) 2000

Micro Level Planning During Colonial Period

Housing Area Development at

WARI, Dhaka

Early Pakistan Period Initiative

A committee was formed in early 50s headed by the then minister Hamidul Haque Chowdhury to prepare a development plan for Dhaka city.

The committee, with the assistance of the then Building and Construction (C & B) Department, prepared a few micro-level area plans for residential, commercial and industrial development of the than Dhaka city during early fifties.

Based on these plans Azimpur Government Housing Estate, Motijheel Government Houisng Estate, part of MotijheelCommercial Area and Tejgaon Industrial Area were developed.

Other Local Level Community Initiatives

Segunbagicha Housing Area

Street Patter n Connecting every plot Service latrine path Fairly regular road pattern

Kalabagan Lake Circus and Natun Paltan Line

The land owner community together worked out area road pattern only.

Lalmatia Residential Area

Formed community association Approached public works ministry to make a plan UDD in collaboration with the local association devised a comprehensive

housing area plan with street pattern, space for school, play field, mosque ,association office, etc.

Beginning of City Level Planning

City level urban planning in Bangladesh began in late fifties.

Provincial Government apprehending large scale urban growth in spontaneous pattern caused by in-migration from India, decided to go for master plan of three major cities - Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna to ensure planned spatial development.

With the technical assistance under Colombo Plan, a consortium of British consulting firms was engaged for this purpose.

From 1959 to 1961, master plans for Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna were prepared.

The plans were prototype and followed the post World War II British master plan style.

The entire city was divided into a number of land use zones and connected by road network and other line services.

Infrastructure of various categories were proposed and spaces were reserved for such facilities as, road, site for public buildings, sewerage treatment plant, water treatment plant, fire station, recreational open space, etc.

• The land use zones were, housing, open space, commercial, industrial and education. The land use zoning plan served as the zoning regulatory measure.

The plan also made recommendations about development in above sectors.

Dacca Master Plan 1959: Structure and Contents

The plan was prepared in map form showing proposed land use and infrastructure development.

An explanatory report was created to describe the plan contents more elaborately.

Two categories of plans were submitted-one for the entire DIT (the previous name of RAJUK) area with a scale of 1:20,000.

The second plan was for the core Dhaka and its adjoining areas with a scale of 1:3960. The second plan was prepared

extracting the area of core Dhaka and its adjoining areas from the first plan. The motive behind the second plan was to depict

the fast expanding high density core Dhaka more vividly.

The master plan report contents can broadly be classified into two-development proposals and implementation measures.

Development proposals were set under nine sectors-

1. Transport and Communication

2. Public Building

3. Population

4. Housing

5. Education

6. Open Space

7. Commercial and Shopping

8. Industry

8. Utility Services

Following master plan proposals, necessary administrative, institutional and legal measures were suggested for

implementation of the master plan.

Apart from Dhaka, a separate master plan was prepared for Narayanganj, which was industrially and commercially one of the

most thriving towns of that period.

Urban Development Directorate Planning Initiative

After inception UDD prepared large number of layout plans for housing estates and upashahars at district level for HSD.

It provided planning services to the then Housing and Settlement Directorate (now National Housing Authority) which implemented all those plans.

RTDA’s First Planning Endeavour

After its inception in 1976, RTDA made its the first attempt of city planning in 1984, in collaboration with UDD and technical assistance by UNV.

A rudimentary draft city plan was prepared in 1984, but it was never finalised. However, RTDA followed land use zoning of the draft plan for many years to offer planning permission to prospective developers.

UDD’s New Drive for Urban PlanningDuring early eighties a radical change was made by the government in the national administrative set up by converting themahakumas into 64 districts and upgrading thanas as upazilas with local government status.Since To make the upazila shahar as the focal point of regional development , UDD Since 1983 UDD prepared 392 master/land use plans for ziland upazila shahars.

But these plans remained virtually as paper plans as no attempt was made by the government to execute them.

UDD still continuing its drive for planning, but in the same old style. Neither does it has capacity to implement the plans nor does it make any arrangement for implementation by other agencies.

Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) is primarily responsible for rural infrastructure development. Later on it was also charged with the responsibilities of infrastructure development in urban local government areas. It undertook planning of many municipal towns left out by UDD. But the initial efforts were not very successful. From mid 2000 a new driveis on by LGED to prepare master plans for pourashavas under UGIIP (urban governance) projects.

New Style of Planning

The early city plans followed the post World War II British master plan style.

These plans were rigid and did not consider the socio-economic issues of urbanisation in depth.

The Town and Country Planning Act 1968 of Britain introduced a new planning style called Development Plan with new form, content and procedure.

It created a two tier hierarchical planning system comprising structure plan and subsequent local plan, together forming the development plan.

Structure plan being a broader and more flexible of plan at strategic level, while local plan to be more certain, pertinent and detailed at local level. Such a system was also promoted by UN Habitat during 1980s.

In 1991 with UNDP assistance, RAJUK and CDA together launched a new urban planning project for their respective cities where the above system of planning was adopted with slightly modified form.

For Dhaka a two tier planning system-Structure Plan and Detailed Area Plan- was proposed. As the project ended abruptly without preparing the detailed area plan, the consultant prepared what is called the urban area plan suggesting interim planning measures for the main city area. The measures were to be followed till preparation of the detailed area plan.

After that, all other cities and towns started to follow the above planning system in a little modified form.

The new urban planning system adopted by other cities and towns of Bangladesh was a three tier hierarchical system-Structure Plan, Master Plan and Detailed Area Plan.

In the new system, keeping the British style structure planintact in form, the local level plan was renamed as detailed area plan. Apart from that, the earlier master plan/land useplan with its old style and form was inserted as a second hierarchy in between structure plan and detailed area plan.

Structure Plan, Master Plan and Detailed Area Plan BY RAJUK and CDA

In 1991 RAJUK and CDA together with UNDP technical assistance launched a newplanning project to replace their old and the expired master plans.

The project aimed to prepared structure plan and detailed area plan. But the projectcould not proceed beyond 1995 for dearth of finding by UNDP. The project had to beshut down without preparing the detailed area plan, the most important component ofthe planning hierarchy.

Detailed Area Plan BY RAJUK and CDA

In 2004 RAJUK and CDA undertook projects to prepare detailed area plans for itsentire area under DMDP, to be completed within two years. However, after long delaythe project has been completed in 2009. CDA also completed its detailed area plansin the same year.

Structure Plan, Master Plan and Detailed Area Plan By KDA

In 1997 Khulna Development Authority (KDA), to replace its old and expired master plan, launched a new planning project called Structure Plan, Master Plan and Detailed Area Plan for Khulna City.

The planning project had three components- structure plan. master plan and detailed area plan. The project prepared the structure plan and master plan in totality, but detailed area plans were prepared in three samples. Three sample detailed area plans were prepared to replicate them for other areas later on.

RTDA’s New Style Planning

RTDA (RDA) in early 2000 undertook Structure Plan, Master Plan and Detailed Area Plan for Khulna City in line with KDA. It, however, due to ToR bindings, prepared detailed area plans for its entire area. The project was completed in 2004.

Ongoing Planning Project

Detailed Area Plan by KDA

In 2010 KDA launched a DAP project, which is expected to be completed in 2013. The plan covers about 181.59 sq.km (44,872.70 acres) acres of earlier master plan area.

Pourashava Planning by LGED

LGED undertook two town planning

projects in 2007.

UTDP : 221 Upazila Shahar Planning

DTIDP: 25 Zila Towns Planning

Work of all the Planning Activities Going on

From 2012 RAJUK has been implementing a new planning project to

prepare a new Structure Plan to replace the Structure Plan prepared

in 1996. The project titled,

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

is funded by Asian Development Bank

The project scheduled to be completed by 2014