The incidents of arson attacks on the land offices were frequent in the recent past. These are the offices in small towns in the country that have fallen victim to such attacks. In most cases, identity of the criminals could not be ascertained immediately. The law enforcing agencies tend to believe that the attackers were solely the activists of the opposition political parties.
The land offices play a vital role in the lives of the people in the rural areas. The value of a small piece of land in such places cannot be measured sometimes in economic terms only. To most of the rural people, landed properties are the most precious ones.
Disputes over land ownership are a regular feature in an otherwise peaceful environment in the country's villages for ages. Given this volatility involved in land ownership, the immovable property has all the potential to trigger bouts of quarrel. Land disputes and the subsequent civil suits continue to linger on, for generations with no sign of settlement in the foreseeable future.
Allegations of tampering with land-related records are galore. Besides, there are syndicates who allegedly work in favour of any party engaged in grabbing a piece of land from an apparently weaker owner. To accomplish such an evil act, documents and deeds are forged, mutations are deliberately altered and false cases lodged. In such a way, a section of land office staffers eventually emerge as a formidable force in land-related disputes.
Yet what is obviously true about the country's land offices is that no basic reform had taken place there since its independence. There has been no such move yet on the part of the authorities concerned until the recent past.
Bangladesh has been able to complete neither a land survey of the whole country nor a 'revisional settlement' (RS) survey, which was first launched in 1966 by the then Pakistan government. In the absence of an up-to-date and comprehensive land survey, issues of ownership have become a long-standing source of conflict.
During the British regime, the colonial power conducted the first land survey in areas which now form Bangladesh. It was a cadastral survey which started in 1890 and was completed in 1940. After Pakistan was created in 1947, the government conducted State Acquisition (SA) Survey, from 1956 to 1963.
The then Pakistan government also started a revisional settlement survey in 1966 apparently to obviate the difficulties faced by the public as the state acquisition survey had resulted in thousands of civil cases that were filed over land ownership.
In the post-Independence period, the land records and surveys department has so far completed revisional settlement survey only in six districts. The department began its own work on RS survey in Mymensingh in 1979, which was completed in 2012, in a period of 33 years. Lack of proper supervision and coordination and inadequate number of skilled personnel working in the department were held responsible for the failure to complete RS survey during the 42 years since the country's independence.
As the state acquisition survey and records had no 'presumptive value', it resulted in thousands of new civil cases being filed across the country. Due to their faults, owners regularly find that their property has been either sold to others without their knowledge or occupied, and the real owners are then forced to file cases in an attempt to get their land back.
Since the RS could not be completed as yet, people in many areas of the country are encountering myriad problems relating to land affairs, including land transfers, based on the faulty SA survey and records. Generally, a RS should start within 25-30 years after a previous such survey. However, the country could not finish this survey which started 47 years ago.
Although Bangladesh had enacted 146 land-related laws dealing with 20 types of land issues so far, they, in fact, do not ensure people's right to land. On the contrary, loopholes in those laws and the land management system are responsible for an ever-increasing number of land-related cases, creating avenues for corruption and denying the marginalised people of the access to land.
The government was scheduled to digitise the land management system by now to help resolve complications in this knotty field. It also planned to deliver all land-related services like survey, registration, mutation and so, from one single office in order to mitigate public sufferings due to cumbersome and corruption-riddled land management. A roadmap for land management should have been in place by now. Yet no progress to this effect is yet visible.
Meantime, allegations are rife that the people do have to spend a substantial amount of money as bribe every year for land-related services like land registration and land record correction. Moreover, the cases have piled up in courts over the decades, many of which have already ruined millions of poor and marginalised people.
In fact, political will of the government as much as that of other political parties are critically important for streamlining the country's land management system on a durable basis. It is because of lack of such a will that land management has continued to remain flawed and weak.
The country's land record system needs to be made stronger and transparent. The maintenance infrastructure can effectively be improved through concentrated efforts in areas of land management, land administration, cadastre and fixed asset surveillance. In fact, the quality of land management is regarded as a benchmark in civilised societies.
The time-worn ways in which land records are now being preserved and land management is done, are enough to give rise to many unforeseen incidents including, among others, arson attacks. Those who have attacked the land offices might have links with the village influential people, across the political divide; they want to grab land taking advantage of their records being burnt.
However, the government is reported to have taken necessary actions to help prevent such attacks in order to preserve the records of the lands. For this, digitalising the whole land record and administration system has become all the more important.
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