Uncontrolled house rent hike is adding to the sufferings of the Sylhet city dwellers in the absence of any specific rule regarding house rent.
According to data available with the Sylhet City Corporation, there are around 52,000 houses that include multi-storey buildings and apartments in the city, a home of some eight lakh people.
Less than 20 per cent of the total dwellers have their own dwellings, while the remaining more than 80 per cent live in rented houses, the SCC sources said.
‘Lack of adequate accommodation facilities, accompanied with increased house rent, has imposed immense difficulties on the city dwellers,’ said banker Zaved Ahmed Chowdhury, adding that most of the tenants are from the low and fixed income group.
Talking to New Age, people living in rented houses have alleged that the house owners increase the rents as and when they wish without taking any opinion of the tenants.
They even do not make any agreement with the renters while they lease out their houses, which opens up their way for hiking the rents in whatever way they want, they claimed.
‘Moreover, the house owners do not provide the renters with any receipt of monthly rent, though they are taking the payment regularly from us,’ said government service holder Fazlul Haque of Subidbazar in the city.
Expressing serious concern over the unhindered increase in house rent, the city dwellers observed that the situation would not have become so bad, if the city corporation had a regular watch over the issue alongside constituting specific rules and regulations for house rent.
‘House rent at all levels across the city has more than doubled in the past five years,’ said high school teacher Nasima Begun of Dakkhin Surma.
At present, the rent of a house comprising two bed-rooms and one drawing room ranges from Tk 8,000 to Tk 15,000 in almost all residential areas of the city.
But five years back, the amount was between TK 3,500 and Tk 7,000, local people said.
House owners, however, attributed the house rent hike to the increase in the prices of essential commodities and construction materials.
‘Not only high prices of construction materials but also the soaring maintenance cost is also another main reason behind the increasing house rent,’ Aftab Ahmed, a house owner at Shahjalal Upa-Shahar.
Being contacted, SCC acting chief engineer Nur Azizur Rahman told New Age on Thursday that the city corporation act lacked rules regarding the house rent.
‘We supervise houses both in the residential and commercial areas just to realise the holding taxes,’ he said, adding that they had nothing else to do, until a regulation was not formulated in this regard.
-With New Age input
