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Right to land -- way to poverty reduction

Md Abdul Kader
ON 10 June in 1985 thousands of landless peasants congregated at Ghugudaha Beel in Santhia upazila under Pabna district to establish their right on the khas land. They have been raising their voice and fighting for the land right since long. On that day they made a final showdown and naturally there occurred a class of interest with the illegal occupiers of the khas land. Some sacrificed their lives, many sustained injuries, but they succeeded in establishing their right on the Ghugudaha khas land. Since then 10th June is observed as Land Rights Day in our local Bangladesh context. And since then Samata, the NGO that led the movement, has been successful to organise the landless poor to establish their right on khas land and water bo.dies at many places across the country.
But much more is yet to be done in their context. And that has to be done unitedly by the government, NGOs and civil society, because empowerment of the poor and ultra poor can lead to poverty reduction more than any other efforts in our largely agrarian society.
In Bangladesh, about half of the total population is still deprived of any income, share of resource, education, healthcare and social security. These people are becoming gradually poor and from poor to hardcore poor in the unequal socio-economic political race. Such unwanted race has been caused due to unequal distribution of natural resources including land. It is becoming very difficult for the poor to survive in this race not to speak of winning it. Consequently, the discrimination between the rich and the poor is increasing in the proportion of a mountain. At the village rural slums are proliferating on the other had high rise skyscapers are changing the urban skyline. This docs not indicate actual or desired progress of a stare or nation.
Therefore, the causes of poverty will have to be eliminated from the society to initiate actual progress. The unequal distribution of resources and economic discrimination will have to be reduced and the rights of the landless poor established thereupon. Land is still the base of our greater society, economy as well as culture. Land is a principal element of our socio-economic structure, source of power and means of production. So the poverty reduction effort should better start from land. The following need to be done for establishing the rights of the landless poor which will ultimately lead to poverty reduction and sustainable development of die country.
Government delegated 'District and Upazila Agricultural Khas Land Distribution Committees should be activated inducting there committed people from real peasant organisations and NGOs involved in land issues along with government bureaucrats and a taskforce should be formed for speeding up the distribution.
The law on selling non-agricultural lands in the municipal area which the government had passed in 1995 has to be repealed for rehabilitation of the slum dwellers in the city and other public development works. Government initiatives to sell such lands must be stopped. Rather the government should take initiatives to recover all the government lands in the municipal area from illegal occupiers.
The khas water bodies— pond, haor, baor etc -- which lie across the country need to be recovered and redistributed to the real fisher folks. All the difficulties relating to water bodies legal distribution need to be removed. The real fishermen who are inherently involved in fishing and real cooperatives should get priority while leasing out water bodies.
All the char lands (accreted from river or sea) have to be included in the khas khatian by changing the existing procedure if needed and redistributed to the real landless poor. The Diyara Survey' needs to be conducted in the char areas. Those not living in the char areas should not get khas land there. A separate 'Land Management for Char areas' needs to be put in place. The land administration should give DCR to the landless poor prior to cultivation season.
A well accepted 'National Land Use Policy’ should be formulated for systematic and optimum use of land. All the reforms regarding land and agrarian issue should be people-centred repealing all the discriminative laws therein.
It is very important to engage property trained, experienced and qualified persons in land survey and mapping works. A magistrate should be present in the field during the survey and mapping works. A temporary magistrate s court must be set up in the field during survey works. Contract basis survey and mapping works should not be continued
Exemplary punishment should be introduced for those who make false documents and deeds of land ownership to grab land depriving the real and owners. Those khas lands which have already gone to the land grabbers through false documents should be recovered and redistributed among the real landless.
It is necessary to strictly maintain the ceiling
and recover the ceiling surplus lands and redistribute it among the landless.
It is also necessary to amend the ceiling based on present context, productivity and crop diversification. The ceiling may be reduced to 15 acres and the absentee ownership of agricultural land abolished.
It is necessary to strictly implement the sharecropping law. The system the should be modernised and policy formulated to establish the rights of the sharecroppers.
A separate Land Commission' for indigenous people who are living in the plains should be instituted to retain their land ownership. A constitutional recognition has to be provided to them. The communal ownership of the indige nous people has to be respected and all the initiatives to build so-called eco-park, dam, base etc. that may go against it should be stopped.
The number of small peasants may be increased through reducing the number of big farmers while the migration to the cities can be stopped through creating agro-based income opportunities in (he villages.
In most cases government depends on local marriage registrars (village kazi) to identify the inheritors of property. A well accepted system to identify inheritors of property should be developed to avoid present difficulties.
A district based 'Special Court on Land Issues' needs to be established while the Vested Property Act should be repealed.
The local government should be strengthened to make the khas land distribution easy, speedy and well accepted.
Those laws which discriminate against women in respect of rights of inheritance, ownership and control of property must be repealed and ownership rights promoted for women including joint ownership and co-ownership of land.
The functions of record keeping and registration have to be brought within a single, executive process at the field level, i.e Tahsil office and Sub-registrar office both should come within the jurisdiction of the single executive officer, say, Assistant Commissioner (land).
The Bengal Tenancy Act. East Bangla NonAgriculture Tenancy Act. Bengal Permanent Settlement Act, Bengal Regulation Act. Transfer of Property Act, SAT Act, Survey Act. Registration Act must be amended, for implementing proper justice in present context.
The water is Executive Director of Smata. a NGO.