The additional rural migrants exert tremendous pressure on the already scarce urban utility services and other amenities of urban life, resulting in a lack of access to basic services relating to primary health and public health services, such as water, sanitation, waste disposal and food safety. In Bangladesh, only 72 per cent of the urban population has access to the water supply (Bangladesh 2005b). No urban area except Dhaka (the capital city) has a conventional sewerage system and only 20 per cent of the population of Dhaka is served by the sewerage network, only 50 per cent of the solid waste generated in urban areas in Bangladesh is collected daily, leaving the remaining waste scattered on the streets and causing environmental pollution (Asian Development Bank 2008). As they do not have the resources to make alternative arrangements to meet their basic needs, they are almost excluded from access to public health services, including pure water, sanitation, food safety and waste disposal. In urban areas, the poor mostly live in a damp, crowded and unhygienic environment.