Technical Report 16: Khas Land Settlement Government of Bangladesh World Food programme Government of the Netherlands CHAR DEVELOPMENT AND SETTLEMENT PROJECT II Pi Dbœqb I emwZ ¯’vcb cÖKí 2 BANGLADESH Agricultural Khas Land Settlement in South Eastern Coastal Chars Of Bangladesh Technical Report No. 16 May 2004 Md. Zafar Alam Senior Land Adviser CDSP-II CDP Haskoning Consultants for Development Programmes Royal Dutch Consulting Engineers and Architects Sheltech Sheltech Consultants i Technical Report 16: Khas Land Settlement Table of contents List of Table.................................................................................................................iv List of Pictures, Maps and Figure.................................................................................v List of Appendix ..........................................................................................................vi List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................ vii Summery................................................................................................................... viii 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................1 2. Land Settlement Procedure in Bangladesh.......................................................3 2.1 Land Settlement: Legal Coverage ....................................................................3 2.1.1 Land Settlement: from tax collection to landless rehabilitation.......................3 2.1.2 Settlement policies prior to 1972: For increasing tax collection......................6 2.1.3 Policies after 1972: For reducing the landlessness of rural area ......................6 2.2 Time Schedule: for a land settlement ............................................................11 2.3 Khas Land Settlement in a coastal Char: Actual Scenario.............................12 2.4 Char land grabbing: The new stratagem.........................................................13 2.5 Official Land settlement: Start for legal tenure..............................................14 3. Agricultural Khas Land Settlement and CDSP ..............................................16 3.1 CDSP-II Land Settlement: Project Area.........................................................16 3.2 Khas Land Settlement in CDSP-II: Area wise Target ....................................19 3.3 Functional Participants: Khas Land Settlement .............................................19 3.4 CDSP-II and Khas Land Settlement...............................................................24 3.6 Improvement of Land Settlement bureaucracy at District and Upazila Level35 3.6.1 LRMS Software: Steps towards modernisation of land record system..........36 3.6.2 Hardware: Equipments for modernization of AC (Land) Offices..................40 3.6.3 Construction of Upazila Land Offices ...........................................................40 3.6.4 Construction of Horni-Chanandi Union Land Office at Boyer Char ............40 3.6.5 Registration coast: Revolving fund ................................................................41 3.7 Gender and Land Settlement ..........................................................................41 3.7.1 Activities: gender............................................................................................42 3.8 Cluster Village House ....................................................................................44 4. Results.............................................................................................................47 4.1 Number of People received Khatian...............................................................47 ii Technical Report 16: Khas Land Settlement 4.2 Shortened procedure of land settlement accepted: .........................................49 4.3 MoL Bureaucracy improved: Software accepted:..........................................49 5. Constrains:......................................................................................................50 5.1 Problem during PTPS.....................................................................................50 5.2 MoL PP: Uncertainty about Project Co-ordinator and delayed in approval ..50 5.3 Suspension of District and Upazila Khas Land Settlement Committee.........51 5.4 Resistance from vested interests.....................................................................51 5.5 Non-responsiveness of MoL officials like PC change, posting of AC Land .52 5.6 Muhuri issue ...................................................................................................53 5.7 Forestland Versus Khas land conflict/ national park issue.............................53 5.8 MoL low capacity/lengthy procedure (bureaucratic and administrative).......55 5.9 Friendly approach of land settlement and its drawbacks................................55 5.10 Settlement in Fake name, missing and left area .............................................56 5.11 Weak /no coordination for land settlement ....................................................56 5.12 Fissure coordination between MoL District Officials and PC MoL ..............58 5.13 Law and order situation in the Char area........................................................58 6. Effect of Land Settlement Programme under CDSP-II..................................59 6.2 Possession Status of Allotted Land ................................................................60 6.3 Land Operation and Control...........................................................................63 6.4 Land Settlement and Gender Perspectives .....................................................67 6.5 Clustered Village (CV)...................................................................................68 6.6 Conclusion on effect of land settlement programme......................................70 7. Lesson Learnt and Conclusion .......................................................................72 iii Technical Report 16: Khas Land Settlement List of Table Table-1 : Project area, CDSP-II.....................................................................................................16 Table-2 : Area wise Land settlements Target and Khas land available.........................................19 Table-3 : Role of AC land in Agricultural Khas land settlement process .....................................23 Table-4 : Training, orientation, and seminar held during CDSP-II...............................................36 Table-5 : PTPS and landless information......................................................................................47 Table-6 : Settlement cases in various stages: Approval part:........................................................48 Table-7 : Settlement cases in various stages: Kabuliyat & Khatian Preparation part:..................48 Table-8: Distribution of Khatian-holders by Residing Status in Polders .....................................60 Table-9: Average Land Allotment of the Surveyed Land Recipient HHs by Land Source .........61 Table-10: Average Land Possession ..............................................................................................61 Table-11: Distribution of Surveyed Households by Land Possession Status.................................61 Table-12: Distribution of Allotted Land and Possession Over Allotted Land (percent)................62 Table-13: Distribution of Households by Land Sale Status ...........................................................62 Table-14: Distribution of Land Sold by Types of Settlers .............................................................62 Table-15: Use Pattern of Income from Land Sale in CDSP-I Areas..............................................63 Table-16: Distribution of Surveyed Land Recipient HH byAgri. Landownership Category.........64 Table-17: Distribution of the Agri. Landowning HHs by Operating Status of Land .....................64 Table-18: Distribution of Own Agricultural Land by Land Management Types...........................65 Table-19: Distribution of the Surveyed Land Recipient Farm HHs by Farm Category.................65 Table-20: Distribution of the Farmland of the Surveyed HHs by Tenancy Pattern .......................66 Table-21: Cropping Pattern of the Surveyed Land Recipient Farming Households......................66 Table-22: HYV Rice and Rabi Crop Coverage of the Land Recipient Farming HHs....................67 Table-23: Avg. Possessed Land of Female-headed HHs Recipient by sources of Allotted Land..67 Table-24: Distribution of CV Houses by the Living Status of the Allotment-holders...................68 Table-25: Distribution of CV Households by Land Sale Status.....................................................68 Table-26: Distribution of CV HH Received Addnl. Land Allotment by their Land Sale Status ...69 Table-27: Distribution of CV Households by Different Land Management Pattern......................69 Table-28: Distribution of Agri. Land CV HH By Land Management Pattern ...............................69 iv Technical Report 16: Khas Land Settlement List of Pictures, Maps and Figure Picture-1 : Migration in Boyer Char starts-a long ahead of official settlement...........2 Picture-2 : Female gathering in Information dissemination meeting ......................26 Picture-3 : Male attendance information Dissemination Meeting ...........................26 Picture-4 : A landless is watching his name in the PTPS list published ...................30