The dominant feeling is that of being overwhelmed. There are people everywhere; the parks are overcrowded and early morning walks turn out to be public events with thousands marching up and down the fanciest or the grubbiest of roads and avenues; restaurants are full, not to speak of public transport and markets.

The best part about Dhaka is its creative people, who function under the most trying of circumstances— filmmakers and writers, singers and scholars, musicians and dancers, artists and teachers, and leaders of NGOs. Its cooks are no mean artistes in their own craft, conjuring up dishes of curried or steamed hilsa, that prince of river fish. Which brings me to another point: the next best thing to its wonderfully creative people is the smoked hilsa at the Dhaka Club.

Overcrowding is the basic problem in the country’s main city as its facilities, built for a much smaller population, groan and falter. Residents of many metros of the Third World have to endure a similar, gruelling fate every day. What then is to be expected of other parts of Bangladesh, including the smaller towns? Here, roads are transformed into noisy markets. Vehicular progress becomes the equivalent of travelling at the speed of a bullock cart on an autobahn.

The 1991 Census of Bangladesh said that Bangladesh had a total of 112 million people. This was projected to grow to 120.6 million by 1996.1 By 2006, this will have jumped to 135.7 million.2

What is the condition of people in the country? What is their accessibility to basic services and facilities such as medicines and healthcare, education and communications, drinking water and food apart from homes, roads and clothes?

If we were to take a set of statistics such as literacy rates for those aged fifteen years and above, the population of literates has significantly increased between 1974 and 1991. Overall it has risen from 25.8 per cent in 1974 to 29.2 per cent in 1981 and then to 35.3 percent in 1991.3 Compare this with its immediate, large neighbour, India. The literacy index for this country is spotty with high incidence reported from the east and poor literacy in northern and central India, the so-called BIMARU belt (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh), especially for women.

What makes especially interesting reading in Bangladesh is the official figures for adult literates on the basis of religion. While Muslims overall reported 53.47 per cent literacy, the Hindus and Christians showed rates of 61.89 per cent and 79.22 per cent.4

In the sector of drinking water, the Census said that only 4.30 per cent of the population had access to tap water. A majority depended on water from tubewells.5 As far as rural female health was concerned, another study showed that the percentage of women assisted at the time of delivery of the child by doctors was 2.2 per cent;’6 midwives and traditional dais provided the biggest support system: they managed 59.4 per cent of all deliveries.7