Though the country is rural, a national daily notes that 27 per cent of its population lives in urban areas (“The costs of urbanization”, The Financial Express (Dhaka), 1 July 2007) and the urban population has been growing at over 3.5 per cent annually (CUS, NIPORT and MEASURE Evaluation 2006, p. 13). The national census conducted in 2001 showed that, over the previous 10 years, the population in urban areas of the country had grown by 38 per cent, compared with only 10 per cent in rural areas (Bangladesh 2003). Hossain (2003, p. 2) notes that, in 1974, only 7.86 per cent of the total population lived in urban areas. This figure had reached 20.15 per cent by 1991, and it is anticipated that the urban population will reach 36.78 per cent by 2015. A projection in the National Water Management Plan also shows that, in the next 30 years, the urban population of Bangladesh will outnumber the rural population and the density of the already overly dense population will increase tremendously (Bangladesh 2005b, p. 10).