Easing land mutation process

How easily one can purchase land in a country indicates the level of easiness with which an investment can be made there. We all know that purchase of property in the US, Canada, Australia, Malaysia and other such countries is very  easy. But in Bangladesh many people think twice before treading that path. They find it safer not to risk their money by purchasing a piece of land and thus run into trouble.

However, things have changed a lot over the years here. Many measures have been taken to ease the hassles of land registration. Many services have been introduced online. Now, one can get some of the certified copies of land documents sitting at home. Of late, a number of steps have been taken to ease the land mutation process. It has been informed that for the purpose of land mutation an applicant is no more required to submit the copies of documents which are available online. On the other hand, certain conditions have been set for a land office to go by, if it rejects a mutation application. It must assign the reason for rejection of the application.

Undoubtedly, all these steps will help ease sufferings of the service-seekers. But there is still room for improvement. The application process for land mutation is still a complicated one. An applicant expects that the online application form will have all the required queries. But that is not the case. For example, there is no mention that the full name of the applicant will have to be put as   signature. As a result, the applicant suffers unnecessarily. Again, once the application is submitted, there is no scope of any correction. If one needs to correct it, he needs to apply anew. This is painstaking. One may need to edit a piece of information after completion of the entire application process. But whenever one reopens the form for editing, some entries there are shown missing and those need to be entered anew.

Last but not the least, after submission of the application online, the land office concerned has its own formalities like submission of printed documents and some papers signed duly. If there is a mismatch, it will not be accepted. Then there is a time limit of 15 days. If the correction cannot be done within the time limit, it takes the applicant back to the starting point of the whole process once again.

Land-related services are one of the most complicated in our country. Despite all the improvements made over the years, there still remain some technical and procedural complexities. If the problems are fixed, that will better the land mutation experience of people to a great extent.

[email protected]