Land utilisation
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Bangladesh is a land short country and every bit of land in it needs optimum utilisation. Only recently, government has gone through some motions of framing a land use policy. But its implementation in right earnest is a big unknown when such application of a well conceived policy has become an imperative. From a lack of zoning policies and their enforcement, limited farm lands are being gobbled up by industries and other enterprises. Accreted lands where the poor or the landless could be settled in large number are grabbed by the locally powerful ones like in the days gone by through force and managing the police and others. The same applies to khaas (government owned) lands and the total size of the khaas lands all over the country is not a small or insignificant one.
From providing lands to the landless and leasing to utilising these lands productively to yield revenues for the government in different ways, the khhas lands could be well used for public benefits and well-being of the poor. But these things are not being done . The khaas lands have become the happy hunting grounds of politically powerful interest groups, locally powerful groups and other vested interests. Even some real estate developers have grabbed these government owned lands and consolidated their control over them in the urban areas.
It would be deeply appreciated if the government takes hard steps to evict as widely as possible the grabbers of government lands throughout the country. Not only their eviction, follow-up measures should be taken so that the former occupiers do not find it easy to re-occupy these lands .
Nurul Momen
Dhaka University
From providing lands to the landless and leasing to utilising these lands productively to yield revenues for the government in different ways, the khhas lands could be well used for public benefits and well-being of the poor. But these things are not being done . The khaas lands have become the happy hunting grounds of politically powerful interest groups, locally powerful groups and other vested interests. Even some real estate developers have grabbed these government owned lands and consolidated their control over them in the urban areas.
It would be deeply appreciated if the government takes hard steps to evict as widely as possible the grabbers of government lands throughout the country. Not only their eviction, follow-up measures should be taken so that the former occupiers do not find it easy to re-occupy these lands .
Nurul Momen
Dhaka University