Bangladesh has grown in various dimensions since independence its population doubled, its grain production tripled, its economy multiplied 10-fold but there is one valuable resource that has not grown at all because it cannot grow on its own our landmass. Bangladesh has a landmass of 144,000 sq km, which is more or less static over time (despite hopes of gaining land from coastal siltation). As the number of people is rising and our per capita income is also growing, the demands on the fixed landmass is escalating faster and faster making this scarce resource all the more scarce. No wonder we are seeing land prices skyrocketing like at no other time in recent memory. Measure for measure, a strip of land on Gulshan Avenue is more expensive than a parcel of land on the Las Vegas Strip, presumably one of the choicest places on earth for commercial property. Despite the high cost of land and its relative paucity compared to our large population (we are already one of the most densely populated countries in the world) it's nothing less than amazing that a complete inventory of our land resources is still not done. Our land ownership records are still maintained in the archaic ways handed down to us from more than a century ago. The age-old system of land-record keeping and its management is so faulty that fraudsters and tricksters are having a field day in this country for a long time. I previously wrote about how the land transfer records, ownership records and taxation records are maintained by three separate government agencies without any mutual accountability among them. As a result, land ownership disputes have grown exponentially over the years, so much so that legal experts estimate that a staggering four-fifths of all litigations are land-ownership related.Now, keeping land ownership records is that so difficult a task one may wonder. The simple answer is no. Throughout the world computer-based record keeping has greatly facilitated land records management in the last 30 years. Within our vicinity, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand have already achieved simplicity and efficiency in land records management. There is no rhyme or reason why we should not be able to emulate our neighbours on this. In fact, we should have been ahead of our neighbours in this area since land records computerisation pilots were undertaken in our country since the mid-eighties. Do we ever wonder why in so many places we never seem to graduate out of the pilot phase even though the benefits are so obvious?There have been some progress though; the developments are far too slow and too little compared to what is needed to root out the evils in land-records management. These days, if you need a land-ownership record (called a 'porcha'), the Department of Land Records and Survey (DLRS) office gives you a computer generated printout in place of the hand written 'porchas' of the past. This has reduced the time from more than a week in the past to a couple of days at present. The process can be further expedited by automating the actual 'porcha' application process, which remains manual.The immediate past DG of DLRS (the current executive director of Bangladesh Computer Council) took up a project to publish the 'porchas' online through their website, www.dgdlrs.gov.bd. DLRS sources say more than 40,000 porchas of Dhaka City are already uploaded on this site. There have also been a number of proof-of-concept computerisation projects for land revenue collection as well as land ownership records and maps management in the last five years. The DLRS management appears convinced of the merit of computerisation and committed to mainstreaming the adoption of information technology in their operations immediately. They have proposed a Tk 3,000 crore plan to computerise all land records of the country in the next five years. On the other hand, the registration processes of land title transfer deeds under the Inspector General of Registration (IGR) are being amended to require more definitive proofs of land ownership and possession. In the past the requirements were very lax in this regard. The Law Ministry (the line ministry of IGR) is known to be considering computerised archiving of registered deeds for faster retrieval and cross checking, where necessary.For an effective land administration system, however, a seamless computer-based land information system will be required that interconnects the computer systems of the DLRS, IGR, and district administration offices. This way, when a land-ownership transfer deed is registered on the computer system at the sub-registry office, the ownership record at the district revenue administration office (ownership title changes called 'mutation' are done here) and at the DLRS office (for issuing up-to-date 'porcha') will be updated contemporaneously. In Kolkata these days, this whole process takes less than an hour. In Dhaka it can take years. It can however be done here in a few minutes also provided the government and the ruling party are fully committed to making this happen. And, by the way, it can all be done without large sums of money from the exchequer. The computer-based land administration system can generate more than enough revenue from the expedited and hassle-free services to pay for itself through build-operate-and-transfer (BOT) financing schemes in partnership with the private sector. With the current finance minister contemplating a public-private-partnership (PPP) allocation in the ensuing budget, may be this is the route 'Digital Bangladesh' will take in modernising its land administration system.
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