The government has planned to save the country's agricultural land from being used for non-agricultural purposes.
To push the initiative forward the ministry of land (MoL) formed a committee that would draft a law by incorporating new issues in it to avert the misuse of farm land, officials said.
The country has been losing one per cent of arable land annually due to indiscriminate use of farm land by a section of people for non-agricultural purposes.
"We are working on the matter. We have formed a committee. The committee already held two meetings. They are going to hold another meeting shortly. In the meeting we hope to finalise the draft that will incorporate some new provisions that are time befitting," Land Minister Shamsur Rahman Sherif told the FE on Sunday.
Earlier the MoL drafted a law titled "Agricultural Land Protection and Proper Utilisation of Land" in 2011 aiming to ensure optimum use of arable land.
Back in 2001 a guideline was also formulated for this purpose. Under the guideline agriculture, forest, housing and railway land along with coastal areas was supposed to come under land zoning, according to the MoL.
When asked about constructions on agricultural land the minister said: "We should discourage people to do it on farm land".
"Our agricultural land is shrinking, posing a threat to our food security. There must be guidelines for best utilisation of agricultural land. We must have a land utilisation policy," senior member of General Economics Division (GED) of Planning Commission Dr Shamsul Alam told the FE on the day.
He said the agriculture sector's contribution to the gross domestic products (GDP) is 16 per cent.
He said for rural areas there was no specific guideline on housing or other construction.
"It is urgently needed to have a guideline for housing in rural areas. And we must have a farm land utilisation policy for the sake of the country and the people," he said.
Agricultural land is being used for urbanisation and construction of infrastructure.
In 1976 the total area of arable land in the country was 9.762 million hectares. Over the last 38 years 1.242 million hectares of agricultural land were used for non-agricultural purposes.
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