THE land ministry is facing severe difficulties in managing land management activities because of acute shortage in manpower. As many as 4,250 posts of Class-I to Class-IV officers and employees among the total 7,632 positions in land management office have remained vacant for a long time. Such scenario is enough to wreak havoc on the ministry’s proper functioning. Most dangerously, seizing the opportunity, local influential people have grabbed public properties and land, thereby depriving the government of large amounts of revenue.
Clients are not getting the appropriate service they deserve. On top of it, the Anti-Corruption Commission has also identified the land management office a hotbed for corruption. Not only there is a need for employees, there is also the need for law enforcement agencies to deter and punish the corrupt officials for their rampant corruption and irregularities.
Also the country’s land management office reportedly became digitised. Understandably, the progress in digitising land management is poor due to shortage in manpower. On completion of the project, the Land Ministry has taken another project titled, ‘Land Management Automation’. None of these projects will be completed efficiently without trained and efficient employees. That said – Competition for diverse uses of land resources, population boom, natural and manmade hazards, economic opportunities and ecological hot spots – urgently calls for distinctive and sustainable land management arrangements through the development of Land Use Based Zoning in the country. It needs to be successfully implemented the soonest.
We call for the government’s authorities concerned to take immediate note of the prevailing crisis. Reportedly, the public administration ministry is not giving its clearance to fulfil the vacancies. Moreover, it is delaying in the name of conducting ‘repeated queries’ about the land ministry’s proposal regarding the filling up of the vacancies. The point, however, it mustn’t continue for too long. Both the public administration ministry and ministry for land must jointly work together to formulate a stopgap measure until the repeated queries are completed. The sequence of the recruiting procedure must be quickened so to fill up the posts quickly.
