Dhaka’s acute shortage of burial land has propelled grave reservation fees up to BDT 15 million, shutting most households out of permanent memorials. The sum secures a plot for 25 years — the maximum preservation term the city offers — and works out to BDT 50,000 a month. Shorter terms of five, ten or fifteen years also carry steep charges. Even before preservation, a standard burial costs BDT 2,000 to BDT 5,000.
Arman Hossain, a day labourer from Jatrabari, buried his father at Jurain graveyard this week after paying close to BDT 2,000 in government fees and another BDT 3,000 for ancillary procedures. River erosion had swallowed his homestead and he could not return to his village. “In the village, burying the dead costs nothing,” he said. “In Dhaka, it takes thousands.”
Urban planners blame severe land scarcity. The two city corporations administer 251 acres of graveyard space across a combined 305.46 square kilometres, just 0.33 percent of the capital’s footprint. Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) holds 192 acres; Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) holds 59 acres. One third of all plots carry a reserved classification, further constricting the stock available for general burials.
Dhaka North operates six graveyards — at Banani, Mirpur Martyred Intellectuals Memorial, Rayerbazar and at Uttara sectors 4, 12 and 14. It charges a registration fee of BDT 500 per burial.
The squeeze is tightest in Dhaka South, which operates only three graveyards. Azimpur, the largest at 37.5 acres, accommodates 25,000 graves, of which 2,600 are reserved. Jurain covers 17.26 acres with 12,000 grave spaces and 2,700 reserved plots. The five-acre Khilgaon site holds around 4,000 graves but offers no preservation option. None of the 36 new wards added to the two corporations in 2018 contains a graveyard.
Mohammad Mobasher Hasan, chief officer for social welfare and slum development of Dhaka South, acknowledged the shortfall. “We have a graveyard crisis. We need more land,” he told Bonik Barta. “People die in one location and have to be taken far away for burial. We have taken a policy decision to build a large graveyard in the new wards. We said it will have to be on 100 acres. That will ease some of the pressure.”
Planners caution that the city has never formally computed its burial-land requirement. Md Ashraful Islam, chief urban planner at the Capital Development Authority (RAJUK), said the debate had yet to gather force because most residents chose to bury relatives in their ancestral villages. “But the number of people permanently settled in Dhaka after losing their homesteads is rising every year,” he said. “Within 20 years, the tendency to bury in Dhaka will increase sharply. We need a fresh discussion now.”
Urban planners say developed cities follow established planning formulas when allocating land for graveyards. In most Western countries, between 0.5 percent and 1.4 percent of urban land is typically reserved for burial grounds, though the share can be higher in some cases. Some cities have also introduced green cemeteries or multi-storey burial facilities. Planners say finding space for graveyards in a densely populated city such as Dhaka remains particularly challenging.
The Detailed Area Plan (DAP) recommends small graveyards in every ward. Private land development regulations prescribe one acre of burial space per 50,000 people. Citing United Nations figures that place Dhaka’s population at 35 million, Ashraful Islam estimated the city requires 400 to 500 acres of burial land — roughly double the current allocation.
Dr Akter Mahmud, a former president of the Bangladesh Institute of Planners, said the fee structure itself signalled the strain. “A graveyard is a place of emotion, the last trace of a loved one. It’s natural for people to preserve a grave for one or two generations,” he told Bonik Barta. “The fact that we have to pay BDT 15 million for 25 years of preservation shows how intense the crisis is. The fee has been set so high precisely to discourage preservation. That signals scarcity. Several countries use graveyards as community spaces. The practice exists in countries including Iran and Uzbekistan.”
Dr Adil Mohammed Khan, an urban planner, noted that individual wards in Dhaka hold 100,000 to 200,000 residents. “The city corporation wants to build a 100-acre mega-graveyard, meaning someone might travel 20 kilometres to bury a relative, only to return months later and find a new grave dug there,” he said. “Our graveyard management makes it plain that we haven’t yet learned to place proper value on human emotion. And so burial space is being bought at such a high price.”