|
Grabbing others' land by the rich and powerful people has been going on for centuries in this part of the world. And this illegal practice has also been the source of millions of civil suits. Stories of many families becoming paupers due to these time-consuming civil suits are galore.
The land grabbers' first choice is always the government land since the task of grabbing khas (government) land entails less trouble. The concerned government agency remains so busy otherwise that it has no time to see who grabs whose land! However, the land grabbers are not fools. They know the art of legalising the unauthorized occupation by greasing the palms of the government officials concerned. The officials themselves would prepare fake documents of ownership to legalise the land grabbing.
The practice of grabbing of land of the poor and weak by rich and influential people had been a common incident in rural areas. But the same practice has appeared quite strongly in a changed yet modern garb in cities and town in the name of real estate business.
Many ordinary people who used to face difficulty even to support a decent living 10 to 15 years back are now fabulously rich just by grabbing others land. Some of these people own so many, mills, factories and companies that, at times, they themselves find it difficult to remember their names. They own shopping malls and super markets.
The government and the media have been more concerned about environmental aspect of the real estate business. But the actual situation has, though belatedly, dawned on the government only recently. But in the meantime, a section of unscrupulous people have made their fortunes.
The issue of unauthorised occupation of government land was discussed at the highest policymakers' level and the Prime Minister at least on a couple of occasions had described the land grabbing a serious national problem.
The Prime Minister at the annual conference of the deputy commissioners of different districts held several months back had asked the field-level government officials to take effective measures for recovering public and private land from illegal occupation.
In this context, she mentioned about the formation of committees at the national and district levels to ensure the land recovery drive.
It was not the head of the government alone. The parliamentary standing committee concerned had also until recently was talking tough against land grabbers. The chairman of the committee had even suggested the use of the services of the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) members to recover government land from unauthorised possession.
All these actions and suggestions did demonstrate a sense of urgency on the part of the government and the parliament to address the problem effectively. But the people who are aware of the levels of inefficiencies and corruption in the administrative machinery naturally would not expect any change in the prevailing situation. It has rather been a fashion on the part of the administration to show their seriousness about one particular issue for sometime and skip to another. The common people find it hard to keep track of the changing emphasis on issues by the government.
It was not long ago the media quoting internal report of the department of forests reported that a sitting minister of state, some law makers and top businessmen had grabbed the government forest land and thrown up mills and factories on it caring little about the surrounding environment.
Why won't others turn into land grabbers when the people of such stature can indulge in such crimes? It also makes the job of the government difficult to run an effective drive against unauthorised occupation of land. Moreover, the credibility of government's pious intention also comes under question.
The poor or the landless do not have the courage and resources to grab government land though they should be the owners of such land. It is the affluent section of people has been grabbing the khas land and the land that is owned by the poor and weak with total impunity. The rural elites are using the poor landless people as pawns to keep their hold on to the khas land and their urban counterparts do the same quite blatantly using their money and muscle power.
In a country having one of the lowest land-man ratios in the world, the land is considered as one of the most valuable assets. The propensity to grab others' land among the people would then naturally be strong. Poor management of government-owned land, lengthy and cumbersome legal procedure and the role of the law enforcers have made the land grabbers bold and desperate.
Thousands of acres of government khas land are under unauthorised occupation in rural areas. The land belonging to the different government agencies and public sector organisations in urban areas, including Dhaka, is also huge in monetary terms. A big part of such land is under unauthorised occupation.
Some of the real estate developers, which sell plots offering attractive prizes, allegedly, are among the major grabbers of government land in Dhaka and its adjoining areas. Even the privately owned lands are often grabbed forcibly. These real estate developers often hire local musclemen to issue threats to the owners of such land and make them accept throwaway prices. A section of unscrupulous field level officials of the land ministry have always been in league with those so-called land developers. Without their help it would have been difficult to grab government or privately owned land.
Evicting the poor and rootless people from WASA or Dhaka City Corporation land with the help of law enforcing agencies has never been a difficult task. The agencies concerned have been indulging in the same task quite regularly. But when it comes to taking actions against powerful land grabbers who very often offer handsome amounts to power pockets and election funds, things get bogged down for obvious reasons. Who does want to kill the goose that lays golden eggs?
|