MoL drafting law to protect arable land

Talha Bin Habib  
The government is set to enact a law for protecting the country's agriculture land and ensuring balanced urbanisation in rural areas to check rapidly shrinking arable land, officials said.
To this effect the Ministry of Land (MoL) started preparing draft of the law, titled "Village Improvement Act, 2015", a high official of MoL told the FE.
He said the government is serious about saving agricultural land, and planning to review the existing land policy to this effect.
In absence of proper law, the country's agricultural land is shrinking swiftly due to senseless and indiscriminate uses of arable land for non-arable purposes, creating fear of losing self-sufficiency in food production.
In 2011 the volume of arable land in the country was around 76,28,000 hectares. The country is gradually losing its farmland by one percent annually due to use of arable land for other purposes, such as - making houses, and setting up brick kilns and industries etc.
The National Land Utilisation Committee (NLUC) in its meeting in February suggested enacting a law for protecting arable land.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as the head of NLUC, directed the authorities concerned to form a separate authority to oversee proper management of land up to upazila level.
Apart from preparing the draft of the law for protecting agriculture land, MoL has also taken initiatives for land zoning map with specification for utilisation of land in rural and urban areas for agriculture, commercial and residential purposes.  
Asked when the drafting of the law will be completed, the MoL official said, "We are working on it through involving other ministries concerned. We hope we will be able to complete it soon".
He said once the law comes into effect, it will ensure planned use of rural resources, especially planned housing in rural areas.
talhabinhabib@yahoo.com