Staff Reporter :
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has found widespread corruption and irregularities in the country’s land service sector as the land owners have to bribe up to Tk 2 lakh for the mutation work of a plot of land.
The TIB revealed the study titled ‘Land Management and Services in Bangladesh: Governance Challenges and Way-forward’ at a press conference held at its Dhanmondi office in city on Sunday.
The findings of the study were revealed jointly by TIB’s Senior Programme Manager (research and policy) Wahid Alam, Deputy Programme Manager Nigar Ranjan Roy and Assistant Programme Manager Nasmul Duda Mina, while its Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman, Deputy Executive Director Sumaiya Khair and Director Rafiqul Hasan were present.
The study said, “landowners are forced to bribe Tk 100-10,000 in paying Land Development Tax (LDT) while Tk 1,000-50,000 for land registration, Tk 200-1,000 for withdrawal of records and maps and withdrawal of certified copies of records and maps.”
The anti-corruption watchdog detected that the authorities concerned take up to Tk 20 lakh in leasing out haats and bazaars while bribery of Tk 10,000 to 2 lakh for preventing any administrative measures and investigations against collection of toll at haats and bazaars beyond approve rates.
The main objective of this study was to explore governance challenges in land management and service provisions in Bangladesh and provides a set of recommendations to overcome those, said Dr Iftekharuzzaman.
He said corruption has got institutionalised in the country’s land service sector.
“Although the government has taken an initiative to digitalise the land sector, there’s no visible progress yet. There’s no proper enforcement of land-related laws and institutional weakness remains there,” he said.
Dr Iftekharuzzaman said cases related to land disputes are on the rise in the country and currently about 18 lakh land-related cases are waiting to be resolved, that is, 60 per cent of the total cases.
Besides, he said, there are huge lack of good governance in mutation, land registration and selection of Land Development Tax (LDT).
The study said some positive steps, including digital land survey and maps database preservation, have been taken in the last five years, but challenges in establishing good governance still remains in the land sector.
The TIB put forward a number of recommendations to ensure good governance in the land sector.
The recommendations include establishing a single department under the Ministry of Land to operate administrative and management operations of land sector and developing a long-term strategic plan for digitalisation of land sector and ensuring an integrated digitalisation of entire land management, registration and land survey.
The study also suggested providing adequate budgetary allocation in the land sector to implement digitalisation initiatives, developing of infrastructure, procuring modern equipment and meeting daily logistical needs.
