The Bangladeshi settlers, with the connivance of the almost totally Bangladeshi administration, have been able to take over land and even whole villages. There is a severe population pressure on land in Bangladesh generally and Jumma land had been regarded as readily available. Only 5 per cent of land outside forest reserves is suitable for intensive field cropping. In spite of the shortage of farming land in the tracts, the government has succeeded in attracting many thousands of land less Bangladeshis. To be land less in Bangladesh is to be absolutely poor and dependent.
Jobs are seasonal, insecure, and pay is enough for subsistence only.
An agricultural labourer receives about five Takas a day when he is working and is usually unemployed for about six months of the year. For the overwhelming majority of Bangladesh's rural population there is little hope to escape from constant poverty. The settlement plans offer an opportunity which no land less or poor Bangladeshi family can ignore. The land however unarable, and the money and food grants, however depleted by corrupt officials, can mean survival for six months or more for poor Bangladeshi peasants. The Bangladeshi peasants who move to the Chittagong Hill Tracts come principally from the plains districts of Chittagong, Noakhali, Sylhet and Comilla, and have no experience of hill slope cultivation.