Journal of Contemporary Management Submitted on 21/11/2013 Article ID: 1929-0128-2014-02-65-18 Golam Moinuddin ~ 65 ~ Fragmented Urban Basic Utilities Governance: Experience from Dhaka City, Bangladesh Dr. Golam Moinuddin Associate Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning Jahangirnagar University Savar, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh E-mail : moinuddin@juniv.edu golam12@graduate.hku.hk Abstract: Improved urban basic utilities i.e. water supply and sewerage, elecrtricity, drainage, roads network; are the prerequisites for sustainable city living and business functions. Effective, efficient and responsive governance of these ultimately shapes the quality of an urban government. Dhaka’s urban basic utilities governance has been tumbling behind the required standard for the last three decades. Consequently it resulted with high degree of inconvenience to urban living and loss of city economy’s potentials. Frequent malfunctioning, supply shortage, belowaverage quality, incoherrent service area jurisdiction etc. are the major features of these services. These are governed in fragmented manner and there is a general understanding within the concerned sphere that it has attributed with such inconveniences. As a potential remedy, adoption of a general purpose metropolitan government with prerogatives to plan, develop, manage services has been in discussion for quite a period within the related political, academic and administrative domain. This research examined two selected utilities to explore how the present fragmented governance is serving the end-users’, how the present status surfaced and what are the prospects of a general purpose metropolitan government to replace the current mode as a better alternative. JEL Classifications: H12, H71, H72, P36 Keywords: Urban basic utilities, Metropolitan government, Fragmented governance 1. Introduction The indispensability of urban basic utilities for spatial, economic and societal growth has been reiterated time and again - specially, in the course of world history after World War II (Moinuddin, 2010; ADB, 2007; Goodman, 2006; Rahman, 2005; World Bank, 2003; Dillinger, 1994; World Bank, 1993). Precisely, the efforts for economic progress resulted with built space expansion and improved peoples living conditions that - in a cyclical order - have proliferated the “demand for urban basic utilities for further growth” (Chong, 2003; p.19). This increased demand compelled city authorities or governments to amplify resources allocation for delivering urbanites with effective and responsive utilities and services that determines governance quality and efficiency (ADB, 2007; Goodman, 2006). As part of a fast growing region in the world, Dhaka has been following this trend too. However, improvement attempts by city’s concerned entities have not been producing satisfactory results (Siddique, et al. 2000). As Moinuddin (2012) insisted, in the last one-decade, delivery and management of urban basic utilities have reached to a troubling status. Precisely, the provisions of water supply, sewage network, electricity supply and telecommunication are short in supply and irregular (Moinuddin, 2012, 2006; Rahman, 2005). Three to ten hours long electricity outage associated with intermittent water supply have become integral parts of Dhaka’s living (Moinuddin, 2012). City dwellers are coerced in resorting to additional sources to meet