Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said that land needs to be judiciously used and its management system should be well-planned considering the country's small geographical area and big population.
Addressing the high officials of the ministry of land and its associate bodies at the Secretariat in the city late last week, the Prime Minister said there should be an appropriate plan for allocation of barren land to set up industries in the northern region. Many foreign entrepreneurs are keen to invest in Bangladesh, and they want land for setting up their industries.
Most of the cases pending with the courts are land-related ones and those continue from generation to generation. The land ministry should be cautious in carrying on with the land records digitisation activities reviewing the previous records so that no one is deprived, she added.
Meanwhile, country's eminent planners and experts say the government needs to enforce stringent control over land use and its registration across the country immediately for future urbanisation and durable development. A national land use plan should be in place in all future economic activities, they suggest.
Although there had been much of rhetoric in the past on rules and regulations for land use in public welfare, hardly has anything been materialised as yet. There had been much talk on equitable distribution of khas land among the poor, increasing land productivity, implementation of settlement act, acquisition of ceiling excess land, recovering land under absentee ownership, modernisation of land administration, improving land management. But, in reality, people are yet to see any significant change in the land system.
The Land Registration (Amendment) Act, 2004, that was made effective recently, has partially helped reduce the incidents of land disputes and check the forgery of documents of land ownership. If corruption and anomalies at the sub-registrar's office can be stopped, the objectives of the new law might be achieved.
The government brought reforms to the registration act in order to improve land management. If modern technology could be introduced along with the newly introduced law, it would further benefit the people.
At present, the land registration system in the country is very complicated and corrupt. The land registration and procurement laws need to be simplified so that the people do not fall victim to village touts. The government recently brought some amendments to the land registration laws but most of the people are not getting its benefit due to their ignorance of the law.
The villagers are the worst victims of complicated land registration system. As they have no knowledge about the related laws, the village touts take the chance of cheating them through making fake documents.
The diversity of ways in which land records may be updated and the problems associated with each, give rise to numerous disputes in which the rich and powerful people inevitably enjoy the upper hand. The government, therefore, needs to formulate a strategy for modernisation of the land records system.
Given the complexity of land reform procedure, a strong leadership is required to take the land reform agenda forward based on strategic vision and doable implementation plans. All the past land reform initiatives failed due to lack of coherent vision and proper planning from the authorities concerned. This time the government should mean business as it is pledge-bound to make the system transparent through digitalisation.
On many occasions, people, after the death of their parents, lose their landed property in long-running cases filed by their rivals because of faulty land record. The surveyors on many occasions deliberately create irregularities in fixing borders of land and also in ownership names. Even murders over land dispute do occur sometimes. All these create negative impact on society and economy.
The government needs to take pragmatic steps to remove age-old anomalies in the land registration system and bring the procedures of mutation and registration of property under one umbrella which will lead to an effective land use plan. It should introduce online record-keeping for property and tax payment. If the government can make the procedures simpler, it will help streamline country's land use and land reform programme.
The ministry of land needs to remain careful so that the ongoing work on a modern land survey system is done properly through digitisation of land records and survey management.
It is thus imperative that the government should enact a new law to regulate the use of arable land. The process is reportedly in the making. It is not unlikely that a powerful lobby may be active against enactment of such a law.
Since the proposed law encompasses almost all strata of society, the government may solicit opinions of the civil society members, legal experts and the media on the draft law. This will ensure people's participation in the process of decision-making.
szkhan@dhaka.net