Tyranny of land survey
Saturday, 21 July 2007
RECENT reports about widespread irregularities by surveyors and chainmen committed under illegal monetary influence in land survey in some areas of Jessore are disturbing. More disturbing is the statement of some higher land officials in the district that they would remove these irregularities on appeal by the affected people. Their positive assurance has the negative implication of the willful irregularities requiring the affected people not only to unnecessarily waste some of their time but also to spend some of their scarce money to have the premeditated wrongs righted.
Those who have been affected by wrongly recording of some of their lands by the immoral surveyors and chainmen as lands owned by others under the bad influence of illegal money, are, in all likelihood, either illiterate or scarcely educated. They may be poor as well, as it appeared from one report. It stated that an individual who had given Tk 500 to the surveyor in his area for having his land properly recorded, wept publicly for having been deceived. Obviously, most of the affected people will have to individually engage lawyers to set the willfully done wrongs of the surveyors and chainmen righted. Who are to blame if these affected poor people consider it as a tyranny of the state and become unpatriotic, lose their confidence in the law and become prone to take the law in their own hand? The government, particularly the Ministry of Land, should take up such irregularities in land survey seriously and hold the local field-level high land officials accountable for not precluding these incidents through strict supervision of land survey. Unless it is done for the sake of accountability, similar offences in land survey will go on taking place in this land-scarce country to the detriment of the interest of mostly the poor and the helpless -- widows, orphans and the innocent law-abiding section of the people who hate to personally flex muscles or engage goons.
Not that it is only from Jessore irregularities by surveyors and chainmen in land survey have been reported. Similar complaints previously came in from almost all areas where land survey has already taken place. In this country, which has a background of the zamindari or land tenancy system, the determination of land ownership on the basis of names in land revenue receipts in many cases is complex. The surveyors and chainmen take advantage of it in many cases to precipitate ownership disputes while conducting surveys. A general complaint is that both local settlement officials and their field-level subordinates make their illegal fortune and get rich quickly during land surveys.
This interim government, whose tenure in power will be about two years and thus is as good as a regular government in regard to conducting affairs of the sate, should duly take note of it. Most of the criminal cases and the civil suits in this country have their origins in unnecessary land disputes. These disputes in many cases arise from irregularities committed by the lower level survey officials during land surveys. The government may carefully examine whether land survey can be done away with and ownership records should suffice to retain, possess and use land by individuals. Any other alternative means to preclude the tyranny of the surveyors will be generally appreciated by the people. But whatever the government adopts as a new policy in this regard should be simple and free of complications.
Those who have been affected by wrongly recording of some of their lands by the immoral surveyors and chainmen as lands owned by others under the bad influence of illegal money, are, in all likelihood, either illiterate or scarcely educated. They may be poor as well, as it appeared from one report. It stated that an individual who had given Tk 500 to the surveyor in his area for having his land properly recorded, wept publicly for having been deceived. Obviously, most of the affected people will have to individually engage lawyers to set the willfully done wrongs of the surveyors and chainmen righted. Who are to blame if these affected poor people consider it as a tyranny of the state and become unpatriotic, lose their confidence in the law and become prone to take the law in their own hand? The government, particularly the Ministry of Land, should take up such irregularities in land survey seriously and hold the local field-level high land officials accountable for not precluding these incidents through strict supervision of land survey. Unless it is done for the sake of accountability, similar offences in land survey will go on taking place in this land-scarce country to the detriment of the interest of mostly the poor and the helpless -- widows, orphans and the innocent law-abiding section of the people who hate to personally flex muscles or engage goons.
Not that it is only from Jessore irregularities by surveyors and chainmen in land survey have been reported. Similar complaints previously came in from almost all areas where land survey has already taken place. In this country, which has a background of the zamindari or land tenancy system, the determination of land ownership on the basis of names in land revenue receipts in many cases is complex. The surveyors and chainmen take advantage of it in many cases to precipitate ownership disputes while conducting surveys. A general complaint is that both local settlement officials and their field-level subordinates make their illegal fortune and get rich quickly during land surveys.
This interim government, whose tenure in power will be about two years and thus is as good as a regular government in regard to conducting affairs of the sate, should duly take note of it. Most of the criminal cases and the civil suits in this country have their origins in unnecessary land disputes. These disputes in many cases arise from irregularities committed by the lower level survey officials during land surveys. The government may carefully examine whether land survey can be done away with and ownership records should suffice to retain, possess and use land by individuals. Any other alternative means to preclude the tyranny of the surveyors will be generally appreciated by the people. But whatever the government adopts as a new policy in this regard should be simple and free of complications.