Change in land management needed to resolve disputes

Radical change in land management is needed to quickly resolve land-related disputes and establish the rights of landless people, said speakers at a roundtable yesterday.

They came up with the observation at the roundtable on Land Reforms Act 2014 and Agricultural Land Protection and Land Use Act 2015 (Draft) organised by Association for Land Reform Development (ALRD) at Jaitya Press Club.

Bela (Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association) Chief Executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan and Dhaka University's Associate Professor Sima Jahan presented two keynote papers at the programme.

Chaired by ALRD Chairman Khushi Kabir, the roundtable was addressed, among others, by lawmakers Fazle Hossain Badshah and Nazmul Haque Pradhan, General Secretary of Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples Forum Sanjeeb Drong, and ALRD Executive Director Shamsul Huda.

Fazle Hossain said, "Land offices and land directorate are riddled with corruption. Their officials, from top to bottom, grab land of innocent people through fake documents. It should be stopped."

He also said the government must ensure that char land is allocated to landless people as well as to people who actually deserve the land rather than to influential ones.

Noting that there are some ambiguities in the draft of Agricultural Land Protection and Land Use Act 2015, Bela Chief Executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan urged all party concerned to make the law more agriculture-friendly.

ALRD Executive Director Shamsul Huda demanded that immediate initiatives should be taken to protect agricultural land and establish the rights of marginal farmers.

He also urged that autonomous authorities should be set up to ensure that agricultural land is used in a planned and proper way.