Land management system to go digital in 2 years: Officials

The government has set a target to bring land management under a digital system in two years, officials concerned said.

It is expected that the digital land management system will mitigate suffering of the people over land disputes and related issues.

As part of the scheme, the government has hired contractors in eight divisions of the country at an expense of nearly Tk 139 crore to digitise land design, mapping and overall land management.

As a result, people are expected to reap the benefits of digital land management in two years from now, officials said.

A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Public Procurement chaired virtually by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday approved the eight proposals in this regard. In addition, two separate organisations were hired to create web applications and collect satellite images and do image classifications.

Following the virtual cabinet committee’s meeting on Wednesday, the finance ministry said it is an excellent project for mitigating suffering of the people over land disputes and related issues.

He said now the ministry will be able to save time and money.

After the meeting, Additional Secretary to the Cabinet Zillur Rahman Chowdhury told reporters that two years of the four-year project have already elapsed. The project was to be completed by 2024.

“I hope the people will accrue the benefits in the next two years,” he said.

He said: “You can avail land-related services sitting at home. This will reduce the violence by brokers or other middlemen in the ghats.”

It was disclosed in the meeting that a development design consultant has been appointed in Rangpur division for digitising some 13,304 mouza map sheets at a cost of Tk 12.99 crore.

Similarly, in Rajshahi division, 17,741 mouza map sheets were digitised and the same organisation was hired at an expense of Tk 17.01 crore.

In Khulna division, the same organisation was hired to digitise 42,161 mouza map sheets at a cost of Tk 27.94 crore, respectively.

In the Mymensingh division, 11,797 mouza map sheets were digitised at a cost of Tk 13.40 crore. The job was done by Desh Updesh Limited and Technical Support Services.

A total of 10,204 mouza map sheets in Sylhet division were so far digitised.

The joint venture of Data Export and Multimedia Content and Communication was hired at a cost of Tk 14.23 crore for digitisation of the Sylhet map sheets.

Meanwhile, a joint venture institute of Water Modelling and Synopsis IT was hired at Tk 12.39 crore for mapping mouza sheets in Barisal division. There, 7,793 mouza map sheets were digitised.

A total of 15,622 mouza in Chattogram division came under digitised map sheets at an expense of Tk 23.09 crore.

Bates Consulting and Megatech GNBD’s joint venture were awarded the job in Chattogram.

In addition, the Institute of Water Management and synopsis IT’s joint venture was tasked to work as a consulting firm for database management and visualisation at a cost of Tk 2.78 crore while the Center for Environment and Geographical Information Service was hired at a cost of Tk 64.64 crore for satellite image collection and image classification across the country.