The Khurushkul housing scheme combines permanent flats, disaster shelters, water systems and civic facilities for families displaced by climate impacts and airport expansion.
Authorities in Bangladesh’s southeastern Cox’s Bazar district allotted flats to 730 more families on Sunday through a lottery under the climate refugee rehabilitation project being built at Khurushkul, bringing the total number of families covered by the scheme to 1,330.
District administration officials said 4,128 families had become landless because of climate displacement and the modernisation and expansion of Cox’s Bazar airport. The government has taken an initiative to rehabilitate them with safe housing and modern civic facilities.
The climate refugee rehabilitation project at Khurushkul is being implemented under the Prime Minister’s Office. The project, one of the country’s largest humanitarian and climate-resilient housing schemes, is being carried out under the supervision of the Bangladesh Army’s 34 Engineer Construction Brigade at a cost of Tk1,457 crore.
Imran Hossain Sajeeb, additional deputy commissioner for revenue in Cox’s Bazar, said the district administration allotted flats to 730 families through Sunday’s lottery after 600 families had previously received flats.
A lottery programme was held at the project site to mark the allotment. Officials said 129 five-storey residential buildings are being constructed under the project. Each floor of every building has eight flats, making a total of 32 flats in each building.
The ground floor of each building includes four guest rooms and emergency shelter arrangements for use during disasters. Construction of 122 buildings has already been completed, while work on the remaining seven is progressing rapidly. Lottery-based flat allotment for the remaining families will continue in phases.
Officials at the programme said construction of the humanitarian and climate-resilient housing project began in December 2020 and is moving ahead with a target to complete the work by December 2026.
Water was a major challenge at the start of construction. To address it, deep tube wells were installed at Chhankhola, about eight to nine kilometres from the project area, and arrangements were later made to bring water from the Bakkhali River. Officials said the measures would be able to fully resolve the water problems of the project’s beneficiaries.
“Bamboo fences used to be our home, now we live in a building,” one beneficiary said.
Officials said a visually striking mosque, a temple, a community centre and four cyclone shelters had been built to support civic, religious, security, family and social needs of the resident families. Construction has also been completed on a water treatment plant, a reverse osmosis plant, a sewage treatment plant, roads, drains and a jetty. Work is continuing on a market complex.
Project Director Lt Col Mirajul Islam, Cox’s Bazar Deputy Commissioner M A Mannan, Superintendent of Police A.N.M. Sajedur Rahman, Additional Deputy Commissioner for Revenue Imran Hossain Sajeeb, Upazila Nirbahi Officer Tahmina Akter, Assistant Commissioner for Land Md Mashiur Rahman, senior officials of relevant government offices, dignitaries and journalists attended Sunday’s flat allotment lottery.
This article is republished from the Daily Jagonews24.
