Went to visit the four slum areas where the survey is being conducted by a team of investigators. First was Begunbari Pataton Bosti, Tejgaon.
This building contains 120 one-room households on three shakily constructed floors. The people live here worry constantly about it collapsing. There is a dispute between the landlord and the government over who owns this land, which could result in eviction. They pay around Tk. 1300 per month rent (£10), which per square metre is around 5 times as much as middle class families pay in Dhaka.
This girl went to a kindergarten (private) school, where fees were Tk. 3000 (£23) to register plus Tk. 150 (£1) per month.
Some of the rooms were too dark to fill in the survey - there had been a power cut since the previous day.
Lalbag Bosti
This slum was originally set up as a "sweeper colony" - people were invited to migrate from India to work as street sweepers. The housing was a combination of tin shacks and a much better 5-storey concrete building.
Some of the people here had relatively high incomes - around Tk. 8-10,000 (£60-80) per month for a family with two earners. This woman's husband was working in Malaysia and sending home money. Most of the children were going to school.
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