Basic land survey long overdue

No basic reform has taken place in the land sector since the country's independence. There is no such move yet on the part of the authorities concerned.
Reports say Bangladesh has neither been able to complete a land survey of the whole country nor complete 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 longstanding source of conflict, contributing to an ever-growing legal backlog as competing land owners file applications in courts.
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 had been created in 1947, the Pakistan government conducted a survey, State Acquisition (SA) Survey, from 1956 to 1963.
The Pakistan government also started a revisional settlement survey in 1966 to reduce difficulties faced by the public as the state acquisition survey had resulted in thousands of civil cases being filed over land ownership.
After independence, the land records and surveys department has so far completed revisional settlement survey only in six districts. The survey is now continuing in 10 other districts. The department began its own work on RS survey in Mymensingh in 1979, which was finished in 2012, in a period of 33 years. Lack of proper supervision and coordination and inadequate skill within the department were held responsible for the failure to complete RS survey in the 42 years since 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.
As the RS could not be completed as yet, people in many areas of the country are dealing with land affairs, including land transfer, 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. Meantime, the RS, that was conducted in several districts, will have to start again as the 30 years have passed since the survey was started.
According to sources in the land records and surveys, the government in 2011 had given approval to a project to conduct RS in nine districts. The survey, however, could not be started in the last couple of years because of manpower shortage.
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  the increasing number of land-related cases, creating avenues for corruption and denying the marginalised people access to land. As many as 120 million people of the country are victims of land disputes.
The government is scheduled to digitise the land management system by this year to resolve complications in the sector. It has also a plan to deliver all land-related services like survey, registration, mutation, and so from one single office in order to mitigate public suffering due to cumbersome and corruption-riddled land management. A roadmap for land management should be in place by now. Adequate allocation was made for this purpose in the last budget.
Once the project is fully implemented, reports say, every land owner will be given a certificate which, in turn, will help solve all disputes in land ownership. Once the digital land management system is in place the beneficiaries of district and upazila levels will get the latest information on records and maps of any plot in the quickest possible time. People will also be able to collect those records within the shortest possible time on payment of certain fees.
Meantime, allegations are rife that the people have to spend a huge amount of money as bribe every year for land-related services like land registration and land record correction. Moreover, the cases that have piled up in courts over decades, many of which have already ruined millions of poor and marginalised people, significantly include those resulted from land-related disputes.
Indeed, the age-old ways in which land records are now being preserved and land management done are enough to give rise to such an unfortunate situation. When the incumbent government launched the projects intended to digitise all the prevailing land-related documents such as maps, mauzas and khatians and modernise the existing land management system in 2010 and 2011 respectively, there was a ray of hope of a modest turnaround. Yet regrettably, both the projects are now facing hurdles in their implementation phases.
The issue of illegal expropriation of land by influential quarters needs to be addressed as well. Political will of the government as well as other political parties is urgently needed to formulate and implement the land utilisation policy on a durable basis. It is because of lack of such will so far that land management has been flawed and weak.
Country's land administration system needs to be made stronger and transparent. The maintenance infrastructure can effectively be improved by concentrating on the land management, land administration, cadastre and fixed asset surveillance sectors. In fact, the quality of land management is regarded as a benchmark in civilised societies.     
szkhan@dhaka.net