Growth of Slums in Dhaka Metropolitan Area (DMA) in the last ten years has been nothing less than immense and spectacular. Using 1996 as the base year, the slum population in DMA was 1.5 million in 3007 clusters out of a total DMA population of 5.5 million. In 2005 the slum population has grown to 3.4 million in 4966 clusters out of a total DMA population of 9.13 million.