Digitised land management is still a far cry

The government has been transforming land management into a digital one to put an end to the social and family problems regarding ownership of land and ensure hassle-free services. It is very common in society that both brothers and sisters deprive each other of paternal property resulting in attacks, killings and conflicts. If a proper land management system can be ensured, the problem would be solved. The government’s measures will protect the ownership of land of all the people staying at home and abroad.
We know land administration is a three-headed hydra that has the whole business of owning, registering and transferring landed properties knotted up in unending anguish and frustration for the general public. The lack of clarity in procedures for obtaining and verifying land ownership information has given rise to the largest clan of thugs and fraudsters that prey on ordinary folks’ simplicity and lack of knowledge of the complex web of legal and administrative steps. Legal experts estimate that four-fifths of all litigations are land-related, and the overflowing cases clogging the judicial system sometimes take several generations over many decades to come to a settlement!
The digitalisation of land administration — encompassing records of rights, payment of land development tax, land title transfer or mutation, and digital land survey — requires a slew of information technologies, know-how and expertise that are readily available locally. Most of the land automation pilots have been done by local companies and even the few pilots that were funded by Bangladesh’s development partners and contracted to foreign companies were essentially carried out by local sub-contractors.
A comprehensive digital land administration will not only curtail corrupt and fraudulent practices in land transactions but will also greatly improve Bangladesh’s ranking in the “ease of doing business” index. Investments, both local and foreign, are fully contingent on moving up in this ranking. Now all that is needed to make it happen is an unflinching political will.