Study on involuntary resettlement plan practices in different infrastructure development projects in Bangladesh

Abstract

Development projects usually involve displacement of people from their inherent settlements. Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated country in the world, this is often resulted by acquisition of land by government. Thousands of people are displacing annually in Bangladesh by both public and private sector development projects due to land acquisition. Resettlement plan practices in Bangladesh after eighties imposed by multilateral donor organization under their policy guidelines. Jamuna multipurpose bridge project was the first development project which considered the resettlement plan with the main project for the involuntarily displaced. Later other project funded by development partners followed this. Every year millions of people evicted from their well-known surroundings for the infrastructure development project and could not restore their life in the previous state. So, this kind of development induced poverty to the directly affected population. Bangladesh already practiced of the resettlements project for some of big development partner funded infrastructure project though it has not yet formulated any guidelines for involuntary resettlement policies for Bangladesh. This study made an attempt to make a review in the involuntary resettlement practices in development project in Bangladesh for giving some guidelines to help to formulate the national policy on involuntary resettlement. After reviewed the different planning components of the plan the study make a critical analysis in terms of strength and weaknesses, policy limitation, achievement and experiences of those project implementation. Discussion with local resettlement specialist about their experiences in resettlement project implementation also consider for an important input. Two case studies were selected for the primary survey for understanding the present situation of the resettlers. The survey output was analysed for understanding the gap between plan and implementation status of the planned featured. Finally a planning standard and policy recommendation for the involuntary resettlement was developed.