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Discipline in land management

5 || risingbd.com

Published: 14:16, 22 March 2017   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
Discipline in land management

Lands are being used randomly everywhere in the country. No rules are being followed to construct buildings and factories even in time of implementing development activities. Due to this reason, the amount of agricultural land is decreasing alarmingly which puts a bad impact on the production of crops.

The cabinet on Monday approved in principle the draft ‘Urban and Regional Planning Bill 2017’ proposing mandatory clearance from the authorities concerned to use land for building any house or any other development activity even in rural areas.

According to the draft, any individual or organisation, either government or non-government, will have to obtain clearance from the authorities concerned for building houses or any other establishments even in rural areas. As per the existing laws, union parishads will be able to give clearances for the construction of houses in rural areas while the deputy commissioners’ approvals will be required to convert arable land for other uses. Provisions of five-year prison term and a Tk50 lakh fine have been kept as penalties for offenders in the draft.

Under the circumstances, the country has annually been losing its farmland for the past few years for various reasons, including random use of the land for housing and non-farm purposes, despite repeated government instructions against such non-farm use of farmland. Apprehensions are there that if such a situation is allowed to continue, it may endanger the national food security soon. Haphazard housing on farmland is also detrimental to the environment and ecology of the areas, especially as it creates increasing pressure on underground water reserve and puts barriers to natural flow of surface water leading.

Impact of desertification is increasing gradually in the northern districts of the country due to global warming and climate change. In many areas, water becomes unavailable in deep tube wells as level of underground water has extremely gone down. Rain water cannot go underground as most of rivers and canals are filled up. Under this situation, production of crops may largely decrease in the northern districts. So, it is necessary to control the use of land to meet the demand of food for the growing population of the country.

As the amount of land is less in proportion to the population in the country, it is important to ensure the proper use of land we have by following a master plan. The amount of farmland decreases when houses are built there. The environment faces disaster when canals and water bodies are filled up. So, there is no alternative to the planned use of the land.

We believe the initiative the government has taken for the protection of farmland and planned urbanisation is very important. The authorities concerned will classify the land after the enactment of the law through formal procedures. In the law, there will be a provision not to construct houses in the lands where crops can be produced twice or thrice in a year. People wishing to construct houses will not have to go to Dhaka or any divisional city for approvals. They will be able to get approvals from union parishad nearby.

It is expected that discipline will come back to the land management after the enactment of the law. But the government should be careful to this end so that the law can be used properly. Side by side, the government will also have to monitor the activity so that people cannot face harassment in name of clearance.

risingbd/DHAKA/Mar 22, 2017/Ali Nowsher/Amirul

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