The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and differently challenged people/persons with disability. While the Draft Policy recommended more equitable access to protect the rights of the disadvantaged to shelter, it is difficult to say how far the claims of justice would be ensured in practice, since the policy has not been finalized. According to Article 15 of the In FY 1997-98, the government allocated Tk. 50 to create a housing fund to address the Constitution of Bangladesh, the crore housing problems for homeless poor and low Government has a responsibility to income population, specially families affected by river erosion, flood, cyclone/ tidal surges and provide access to basic necessities, fire incidents. So far a total of taka 164 crore has including shelter. Article 31 and 32, been released under the housing loan scheme. Already 46,808 houses have been constructed at which protect the right to life, have 400 upazilas in 64 districts. The total number of been interpreted by the High Court beneficiaries of the scheme is 2,34,040 among which 60 percent represent women. An allocation to include and incorporate the of Tk. 11,714 crore for the rural development and right to livelihood and accordingly local government divisions, development and nondevelopment budget combined, for the fiscal year the right to shelter. While the 2011-12. This allocation includes current government Government does not have the steps to set up Palli Nibash (rural housing) as per their election manifesto. responsibility to immediately provide shelter to all persons, it Source: Towards Building A Happy, Prosperous and Caring Bangladesh: Budget Speech 2011- 2012, Abul does have a responsibility to ensure Maal Abdul Muhith, Minister, Ministry of Finance, of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, that citizens are not arbitrarily or Government Dhaka, 9 June 2011. forcibly evicted. Recent High Court decisions have determined that before evicting slum residents from their dwellings, the Government must provide written notice, in accordance with law, and, through an interpretation of the state’s obligations to ensure protection from forced eviction, have required the authorities not to carry out any eviction without prior rehabilitation or resettlement. Slum dwellers, who are critical to the functioning of the urban economy, operating in both the formal and informal sectors (for example as workers in garment factories, or as rickshawpullers, domestic workers etc), and as individual citizens, deserve to have their rights recognized. BLAST, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) and Nijera Kori challenged the evictions of slum dwellers to ensure that persons living in poverty in slums can exercise their basic rights. These organizations have filed writ petitions such as BLAST and others vs. Bangladesh and others (Writ petition no. 1778 of 1999), BLAST vs. Bangladesh and others ( Writ petition no. 6252 of 2001), BLAST vs. Bangladesh and others (Writ Petition No. 567 of 2003), Nijera 28 Kori, BLAST and others vs. Bangladesh and others (Writ Petition No. 5194 of 2004), BLAST, ASK and others vs. Bangladesh and others (Writ Petition No. 5298 of 2005), ASK, BLAST and another vs. Bangladesh and others (Writ Petition No. 4456 of 2009) etc. on issues relating to the right to shelter. Judgement on these petitions is still pending. 2.2 Right to Water Bangladesh has set itself ambitious The current government has promised to supply pure drinking water to all by 2011 but the budget goals beyond the targets of the report revealed that though new water sources have Millennium Development Goals been set up, not all citizens have access to arsenic free pure drinking water. to reach universal access to safe Source: Dialogue on State of the Bangladesh drinking water by 2011 and universal Economy Analysis of the National Budget FY 2011-12,CPD-IRBD Team, Mustafizur Rahman-ED, access to improved sanitation CPD, 18 June 2011 by 2013. There is considerable Up to March 2011, 6463 water sources have been set up by the government and a plan has been worked political will in Bangladesh to out to set up an additional 2 lakh water sources by achieve these targets, and much FY 2012-13. Out of 309 municipalities, water supply systems have been installed in 130 municipalities attention has been devoted to by March 2011. In the next fiscal year (FY 2011-12), the water and sanitation sectors. another 40 municipalities will be brought under the coverage of safe running water. In order to ensure The National Water Policy (1998) an arsenic free water supply in the rural areas as it been done in the urban areas, the government and the National Sanitation has will adopt a policy to re-excavate and protect at least Strategy (2005) recognize water one water body in each village. The total amount Tk. 2,228 crore has been allocated for the water and sanitation as human rights. of resources sector in the FY Bangladesh recognized that water and sanitation are human rights at the regional level when it signed the Delhi Declaration of the third South Asian Conference on Sanitation. Numerous other national policies are also directly related to water and/or sanitation, such as the Policy for Safe Water Supply and Sanitation (1998), the Water Management Plan (2004) and the Policy for Arsenic Mitigation (2004), as well as the Sector Development Framework (2004), the ProPoor Strategy for Water and Sanitation Sector (2005) and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2009). Numerous ministries in Bangladesh have responsibilities relating to water and sanitation services. The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives has overall responsibility for monitoring 29