RHD now can keep record of its 98pc land

Roads and Highways Department (RHD) is now able to put 98 per cent of its own land on record after its three-year efforts, officials said.

RHD owns a total of 69794.84 acres of lands in its 10 zonal office areas in the country, but it is able to keep a record of 68633.68 acres.

Sources said the department is yet to collect data on 1161.16 acres of land as it has not got documents from zonal offices.

They also blamed few zonal offices for non-cooperation in providing related infonnation and incompletion of official land record in some areas responsible for the delay.

Roshni-A-Fatimah, superintendent engineer of Management Information System and Estates circle, said RHD has become able to keep land record due to successful operation of new software.

Following development of the soft­ware, she said, they could collect information which remained scattered in different offices. "Now it is possible to maintain record of land."

RHD started collecting data on its land attheend of 2015 with the target to complete the land record work within two years. But for not getting cooperation from different zonal offices, the process was delayed for more than a year. It also took time for software correction.

Though the department has huge land of its own, a good portion of the land was not under its control.

Sources said RHD could not maintain the land record after giving lease to different quarters. Vast lands have also been grabbed by many influential quarters.

According to the official data, RHO recovered 130 acres of land after evicting illegal structures in October.

RHD has the highest 8975.74 acres of land in Rangpur zone and the lowest 2653.47 acres in Barishal.

A total of 609 acres of land could not be placed on record in Chattogram zone.

When asked about the delay,the Superintendent Engineer said, "Sending documents is time-consuming as more than two government agencies are involved with the process."

She, however, said the RHD has taken another move to keep record of land which was leased.

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