With the connivance of some corrupt officials of the local administration and local self-seeking influential persons, grabbing of Khas land is going on incessantly across the country. It is alleged that although the District Commissioners (DCs) are authorized to look after the Khas land, in most of the cases they are not performing their duties properly to protect Khas land from the grabbers.
Recently the Land Ministry detected a case of grabbing of 80.57 acres of Khas land at Chilmari upazila of Kurigram district. An inquiry of the ministry has found that an official of the local land office prepared forged papers and documents for the grabbers in exchange for bribe. The Land Ministry has sent a letter to the DC of Kurigram to recover the grabbed land.
The role of the local UNO and AC Land and some other land officials is also being questioned in Khas land grabbing at Chilmari. It is alleged that many such occurrences remain unknown. The occurrence of Chilmari is just one example of many such incidents of Khas land grabbing across the country. Land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury recently told media that the government will, if necessary, take stern action to recover the grabbed Khas land and the recovered land will be distributed among homeless and landless people.
An official of the Ministry of Land said Khas land is being grabbed incessantly by local influential people, officials of land office and high officials of upazila and district level. Joint secretary (Field Administration and Khas Land) of the Ministry of Land Pradip Kumar Das said the ministry does not have any monitoring team or any committee for supervising Khas land.
The DCs are the key persons to take care of the Khas land. As per law, the DC concerned can recover the land by lodging eviction case. The land ministry provides the required money for the eviction process. He further said if anyone informs the land minister, the land secretary or him about Khas land grabbing, immediate action will be taken to recover it. Any citizen of the country can inform the ministry by letter or over telephone about Khas land grabbing. The Land Ministry will open a hotline soon. Anyone from anywhere in the country will be able to use this toll-free hotline to inform authorities about Khas land grabbing, he added.
According to the Ministry of Land, the country has 57,45,368 acres of agricultural and non-agricultural Khas land, among which, 20,73,811 acres are agricultural Khas land and 36,71,557 acres are non-agricultural Khas land. During 2014-2018 period, some 10,00481 acres of Khas land has been allotted to government and private sector.
But the Land Ministry does not have any specific estimation about how much Khas land each district or upazila has. However, recently the ministry has asked all the DCs of the country for accurate estimation of Khas land of every district. In 2015, the Land Ministry made an announcement of conducting drives to recover the grabbed Khas land. The ministry had officially instructed the DCs in this regard. But it remained only as an official order.
In 2017, the government again instructed the DCs to apply administrative power to recover the grabbed Khas land. But the DCs remained inactive as they were before.
