Towards attainment of Millennium Development Goals

Considering these issues and for replicating the great success of the landless people in Ghughudah Beel as well as other parts of the country in gaining rightful access to khas land Samata and its like-minded 120 national and international NGOs, CSOs and CBOs under the platform namely 'Land Rights Day National Observation Committee' celebrate 10th June as Land Rights Day. The landless male and female of Ghughudah beel at Santhia Upazila of Pabna district established their rights over khas land through a heroic movement on 10th June in 1985. This was their valiant victory but in the process, many landless people sacrificed their lives among them Intaj Ali, Lokman Hossain, Lalmohan, Haider Ali and Kalimuddin are notable.

This year the committee organised 'Press Briefing' at 25 districts and 'Mass Rally and Memorandum Submission' at 200 Upazilas under 40 districts in Bangladesh as a part of its weeklong programme to observe the occasion. On 10th June the committee organised 'Big Mass Gathering' with around 50,000 landless male and female at Ghughudah Beel in order to mark the day and raise voice of the landless people to establish their rights. The theme of the year was 'Establish, Land Rights Cause Agrarian Reform, Empower the Urban and Rural Poor'.

In the third world context, land is an important asset for the poor providing a basis for shelter, food production and other livelihood activities. A piece of land can provide a family relief from hunger and ensure right to live in the society with due respect, honour and dignity. The ownership of land has been playing a significant and active role in social, economic as well as political freedom of man. Consequently, the ownership of land has been their dream for a long time.

The countries that have reduced poverty such as India, Indonesia, China and also Bangladesh have shown a strong connection to agriculture growth. A recent study covering 58 countries concluded that a 10 percent increase in agricultural productivity was associated with a 6 percent poverty reduction in the proportion of people living on $1 a day. The relationship between economic growth and equity is very complex; however, agricultural growth that benefits the poor is strongly associated with equitable distribution of land. Greater equity in land holding is a key to rural poverty reduction.

Land is a very scarce resource compared to the size of population in Bangladesh. However, a large amount of public resources (khas land, khas water bodies, char land, railway land, vested properties, embankments, cole etc.) remain legally under the government. In reality, an unholy coalition of local elite, corrupt government officials, such civil society people and political activists as always take shelter under successive governments occupying and enjoying these public resources. As per the law, all these public resources are supposed to be distributed among the genuine landless poor.

According to the research study report of Human Resource Development Center (HRDC), the estimated amount of identified khas land in Bangladesh is 3.3 million acres with 0.8 million acres of agricultural land, 1.7 million of acres of non-agricultural land and 0.8 million acres of khas water bodies. In addition, as per the report on 'Riverine Chars in Bangladesh' prepared by ISPAN (Irrigation Supports Project for Asia and North; east) published in 2000, up to the year 1991 there was 1722.89 square kilometers charland in the flow channels of only three major rivers namely Jamuna, Padma and Meghna in Bangladesh. Besides, a huge amount of char land is lying in the channels of other two hundred rivers, which crisscross the country.

It is very true that we can not satisfy all the landless families (consisting 57.5% of the total population) through this khas resource distribution. However, we can rehabilitate at least a significant portion of the landless families on these public resources and in that way we can achieve the MDG regarding reducing by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty. In our experience, we find that the crops produced, a plot of land (1-2 acres based on the fertility of land) could provide yearlong food security to an average family (5-6 members) and increase income and savings of the family. We also found that it plays a significant role in raising extreme poor to non-poor (income poverty perspective) level.

But this is not an easy task. It needs greater public demand and political will of the government. The following need to be done for achieving success:

*Ensuring distribution of all khas lands among the genuine landless people according to the government policy.

*Increasing representation of civil society and landless people in khas land distribution and management committees from Upazila to national level.

*Stopping eviction of the urban poor from slums and ensuring their accommodation on khas land at easy installments.

* Strictly stopping acquisition of the khas land and water bodies in the name of real estate business.

* Ensuring equal rights of women over khas land and inherited property.

*Containing all evil attempts of transferring khas land to land grabbers.

*Stopping distribution of agricultural land in the name of water bodies.

*Ensuring the share-cropping law for share-cropper.

*Resettling the minimum wage for agricultural labours and ensuring the equal wage for women.

* Allocating water bodies to the genuine professional successors of fishermen.

*Preventing false documentation and restoring khas land under government control.

*Distributing the unused khas land of Forest Department acquired by the government in the coastal area among the landless people.

*Making the alluvium and diluvium law pro-poor and registering all char lands as khas lands.

*Distributing char land among the landless giving priority to the people affected by river erosion.

*Establishing C.L.O. and modernising the land record keeping system to prevent false documents.

*Combining record, registration and settlement under a single ministry.

*Re-fixing the agriculture land ceiling according to the land classification at rural and urban areas.

*Implementing the ceiling law strictly and recovering and redistributing ceiling surplus land among the genuine landless people.

*Establishing land court in every district to settle down land litigation.

*Establishing accountability in land management and appointing efficient, honest and permanent staff in land survey.

*Forming a separate land commission for indigenous people living in the plain lands and start functioning of the land commission for Chittagong Hill Tracts.

*Stopping commercial shrimp cultivation which destroys environment and threatens small farmers.

*Stopping use of chemical fertilizer and harmful hybrid seeds and pesticides.

*Distributing the urban khas land at division and district level, including Dhaka and other cities, among the Dalit people to build Dalit palli.

*Repealing the S.A/R.S records which have been reordered illegally as private property from the C.S records of khas land.

Equitable distribution of assets provides a foundation for achieving broad based growth. In the last three decades, we have experimented different approaches (e. g service delivery, micro-credit etc.) for poverty reduction. However, the poverty in the country has been reduced at a very slow rate, only 1.5 percent. We need at least 7 percent of economic growth rate and 3 percent poverty reduction rate in order to achieve Millennium Development Goal. We think poverty reduction through establishing land rights of people would be the sustained and significant approach to achieve the MDGs. This is the core objective of observing Land Rights Day.

Md. Abdul Kader is Executive Director of Samata.