Digital land survey has become an urgent need for substantial and
sustainable reduction of the existing land-related corruption and
litigation, speakers a discussion said here on Sunday afternoon.
They viewed introduction of the digital land survey in the country
would also remove the people’s sufferings related to the land disputes
caused by the conventional land records.
The observations came at an orientation of a project styled
“Sustainable Access to Land Equality (SALE)” held at Cooke Jar
Convention Center in Rajshahi City.
Uttaran, a development organisation, hosted the programme in
association with Manusher Jonno and European Union aimed at
disseminating ideas about modern land survey and records among the
field level land officials, staff and other stakeholders.
In his project-briefing speech, Mamun Rashid, project coordinator of
SALE, says the project is being implemented in Mohanpur upazila of the
district in order to strengthen access to land and property rights for
all citizens especially the poorest in line with the overall
Access-to-Land programme.
Mainly, the project intends to promotion of effective, transparent and
accountable land governance practices towards access to equitable land
and property rights for the poorest community within next three years.
Deputy commissioner of Rajshahi Mejbah Uddin Chowdhury addressed the
discussion as the chief guest while Additional Deputy Commissioner
(Revenue) Dewan Abdus Samad and Mohanpur UNO Shamim Ahmed spoke as
special guests with Zonal Settlement Officer Mominur Rahman in the
chair. Uttaran Area Manager Mita Rahman moderated the discussion.
The chief and special guests said that there is a lot of hope riding
on the effective use of ICT in the Land Management System to usher in
modernisation, user-friendliness, transparency and accountability in
this very important sector.
They said the goal of “Digital Bangladesh” can be achieved through
digitisation of land records as modernised land management practice is
documented for wider replication in developing efficient land market
and sustainable land use.
Emphasis should be given to creating awareness among people of the
targeted communities for their having access to the modernised land
records management system through improved civic participation.
“We have to develop a process of identifying landless people for fair
distribution of khash land among them properly,” said DC Mejbah Uddin
Chowdhury adding that the project must be implemented properly and
accurately so that the targeted people can derive total benefits of
it. -BSS, Rajshahi
