Digital land zoning in progress

The government would take a special initiative under the public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement to expedite issuance of land ownership certificate, Finance Minister said Thursday in his budget speech.
"A special initiative will be undertaken this year under PPP to expedite issuance of land ownership certificate," he said while delivering his budget speech for the fiscal year (FY) 2015-16 in the parliament.
About land management, survey and record keeping, he said as part of modernisation of the land management system, digital land zoning maps were prepared covering two district towns of plain land and 152 upazilas of coastal area under Coastal Land Zoning Project (CLZP).
"Formulation of land zoning reports for another 40 districts is underway. I mentioned in my previous budget speech about the introduction of Land Ownership Certificate in place of conventional khatian," the finance minister said.  
To this end, a digital survey on three mouzas of Jamalpur Sadar upazila was completed under a pilot project, he said.  
Mr Muhith said that the survey was going on for Amtoli upazila in Barguna and Mohanpur upazila in Rajshahi.
He said that the digital survey for preparing a digital land sketch plan and khatian of 5 mouzas of Savar had been completed under a pilot programme.
"Similar surveys are being conducted at 48 mouzas of Palash upazila in Narsingdi. A special initiative will be undertaken this year under PPP to expedite issuance of land ownership certificate," he mentioned.
Mr Muhith said presently establishment of 20 land information service centres in 20 upazilas was underway.
"In addition, we have prepared a draft on Agricultural Land Protection and Land Use Act to ensure planned and appropriate use of land which will be finalised soon," he said.  
"We aim to develop physical infrastructure of all union land offices by 2019 and to digitise land related services in all upazila land offices by 2020," he added.  
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