ECNEC nods four projects including national digital land zoning
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on Tuesday approved four projects involving an overall estimated cost of Tk 796.45 crore, including a Tk 337.60 crore project for mouza and plot-based national digital land zoning in a bid to ensure proper land management at the field-level.
The approval came from the ECNEC meeting held with its chairperson and prime minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
The prime minister chaired the meeting virtually from her official Gonobhaban residence while concerned ministers, state ministers and secretaries joined the meeting from the NEC Conference Room in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.
Of the approved four projects, three are new while the remaining one is a revised project.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, planning minister MA Mannan said, “Out of the total project cost of Tk 796.45 crore, Tk 623.65 crore will come from the government of Bangladesh while the rest Tk 172.80 crore as project assistance.”
Terming this national digital land zoning project as a ‘grand’ project, Mannan said there will be a digital database of land under this project and every plot will be characterised by its nature.
Once the project is implemented properly, the land related disputes and other related incidents will come down significantly alongside the influence of the middlemen in this regard, he quoted the prime minister as saying in the meeting.
The prime minister also stressed the need for bringing the countrywide sub-registrar offices under the digital system to further ease the land registration process and thus reduce the sufferings of the service seekers.
Planning commission member Md Zakir Hossain Akand said the land ministry will implement the mouza and plot-based national digital land zoning project by June 2024. The state exchequer will bear the total cost.
He also said that the project will cover some 56,348 mouzas of 4,562 unions in 493 upazilas in all the 64 districts of the country.
Zakir said that satellite image will be used for this digital land zoning while the mouza maps will also be digitalised.
The main project operations include collection, scanning, digitisation, database creation, edit plot checking, geo-referencing mouza map, matching of mouza map and field checking of some 138,412 sheets of maps.
The meeting also approved the 1st revision of the Bangladesh regional domestic road transport project-1 (Chattogram-Dhaka-Ashuganj) and connected river ways dredging and installation of ancillary infrastructures including terminals with an additional cost of Tk 149.42 crore.
Regarding the project, the planning minister said prime minister Sheikh Hasina has asked the authorities concerned to ensure proper waste management at the bus terminals, train stations and river ports alongside ensuring proper management and disposal of medical waste.
Noting that massive development works are now undergoing across the country, the prime minister said that industries should not be set up here and there like on the arable land or near the homesteads, rather industries should have to be set up at the dedicated areas or zones for industries.
Mannan said the prime minister also stressed the need for dredging properly the rivers and canals and other waterways since Bangladesh is a riverine country and goods can be transported through waterways with less cost.
Referring to the approval of canal re-excavation project for addressing water logging at Begumganj, Chatkhil, Senbagh and Sonaimuri upazilas in Noakhali with Tk 71.87 crore, the planning minister said the prime minister stressed that both sides of the rivers and canals should have to be freed from the encroachers while the canals should be also freed from water hyacinth.
The other approved project in the meeting is Bhairab River Re-excavation (2nd phase) with Tk 237.56 crore.