Public land in private hands

Chairman of the parliamentary standing committee for law ministry and ruling party MP Mahbubur Rahman has given out some statistics portraying the horrific extent of illegal occupation by real estate developers and builders in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Gazipur. It is disquieting to note that 6,000 acres of government land is in wrongful position, of which the district authorities have recovered only 306 acres. The accountability exercise has been basically fringe-touching: 164 criminal cases were filed against the land grabbers with another 159 being under preparation. A handful of apparently powerful developers and some industrial houses have encroached on the huge acreage of public land in the three districts including Savar. The data were obtained from reports submitted by the respective district administrations in compliance with a directive of the JS standing committee to let it have detailed accounts of the lands gobbled up.

As a matter of fact, parliamentary standing committees have a deeper and wider responsibility than merely bringing out the facts like newspapers or the visual media. But the Jatiya Sangsad committees being what they are -- questioning and recommendatory bodies -- rather than authorities mandated to secure corrective action on the part of the faulted government offices or agencies under respective ministries, tend to have a limited bearing on the ultimate fate of their own findings. This has to change; they have to be given more follow-up teeth.

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Meanwhile, as the developer companies in the breach of law have been identified by name and address, the public would expect the government to take appropriate action against them?