See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/274458919

Digital land management system: A new initiative for Bangladesh

Conference Paper · April 2014

DOI: 10.1109/ICEEICT.2014.6919031

CITATIONS READS

30 23,777

2 authors:

Sajedul Talukder Md. Iftekharul Islam Sakib

Southern Illinois University Carbondale Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
41 PUBLICATIONS 230 CITATIONS 16 PUBLICATIONS 90 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Network and System Security View project

Automation View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Sajedul Talukder on 17 April 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Digital Land Management System : A new initiative
for Bangladesh
Sajedul Karim Talukder,1, ∗ Md. Iftekharul Islam Sakib1 and Md. Mustafizur Rahman1
1 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh
∗ sajedul.karim.talukder@gmail.com

Abstract—Being a small country with a huge population imperative one, the land sector of this country deserves
Bangladesh is commonly known as an agriculture based a well-structured management system but unfortunately
nation. Per capita land in comparison to the number of the depiction is not the same. The land management
people is very insignificant and hence the management of system of this country still suffers from outdated methods
land system holds a vital role in the economic and social
and technologies and yet too far away from the touch
aspects of this country. Eventually the land management
system of this country urges to grow into a very efficient
of modernization. Corruption, incompetence and lack of
system. Unfortunately the reality is lagging behind too transparency have made the land management system
far and the land management system of this country has of this country a slow coach. At anyhow, there should
gradually become a burdensome matter which is now be a termination to this obsolete system. We must
entirely impotent to encounter the newly evolving land adopt an efficient system which is free from the above
issues and problems. Majority of the conflicts and quarrels encumbrances which is the core inspiration behind our
in rural as well as urban areas arise as a result of the suggested land management system. In our work, we
inefficient and corrupted land systems which in turns often have tried to find out the bottlenecks and hindrances of
create a long term problem. Nevertheless, some researchers
the existing land management system and come up with
have tried to come up with a solution but none could
make it work. The implement level tasks have remained a new system which will free from those troubles as well
unexplored in some way or other and consequently the land as serve as a better solution for the people of this country.
management system have failed to realize its goals. In a Our investigation suggests that the core problems behind
nutshell, the land management system is concerned with the inefficiency of current land management system lie
two major issue- land surveying and land management. with the extensive widespread of corruption and use of
Only eyeing to one issue neglecting to face the other one obsolete methods to accomplish the huge tasks involved
will not come up with a fruitful upshot. Out of this fact with land management. Eventually we were motivated to
identified, the paper proposes a model land management
design a land management system which is completely
system which offers both the solutions- GPS based land
contemporary and comes with the concerns of land
surveying and online land management encompassing an
assortment of web based participatory services. We have surveying as well as online land management.
also implemented our solution using some real life scenario II. EXISTING LAND SYSTEM OF
and data and tried to face the real life complications and
BANGLADESH
hitches.
The current land system of Bangladesh can be
Index Terms—Per Capita Land, Land Management, inspected from two major viewpoints. They are-
Land Surveying, GPS
• Land Surveying
I. INTRODUCTION • Land Management
Bangladesh is a country with about 1, 47,570 square A short summary of the existing land management
km territory. The significant proportion of this territory is system can be grasped from the below.
cultivatable land mass which is considered as the prime
earning source of the people of this country. The country A. Land Surveying:
is not yet well prone to large scale industrialization The land surveying system of Bangladesh is conducted
and hence her economy is largely hooked on the land totally in a traditional way. The land survey process is
based agronomy. Furthermore, the amount of land per denoted by the term land settlement and is managed by
head is very trifling and paramount percentage of its the Directorate of Land Records and Surveys (DLRS). A
population depend on land property for their livelihood. diara settlement officer is in charge to look after oversees
As a result, land has been always a vital issue in the surveys in riverine areas and major urban areas where
social and economic traits of this country. Being such an many changes of ownership occur. The land surveying
system comprises of two tasks- land measurement and
the map drawing. The whole process is obsolete and old
fashioned and there is a little use of modern equipment.
The land measurement is done by some people known
as Amin or measurer who are responsible for measuring
the land and collecting the land data from the owner.
At first the land is measured using the measuring tape.
The tape is placed along the boundary of the land and
the length of the land is calculated. The measured length
is then recorded in the paper and the data is submitted
to the land office and accordingly the map of the newly
measured land is updated. The land surveying process
can be described using 10 phases. The first phase is
cadastral survey in which Amin and 2 chainmen draw the
altered mouza map displaying changes in area, location
and characteristics of land followed by demarcation
of boundaries. The second phase is Preliminary record
writing where Amin fills up the columns of the khatian
(record of rights) form giving plot number, khatian
number, classification of land, area, crops grown, name
of owner, agricultural practices etc. information. At the
third stage the draft khatian is handed over to the owner
and entries are explained. If it is alright then Tehsildar
listens to each owner, attends to any disagreements
and, if satisfied, attests the khatian by signing it in
red. Otherwise a re-survey is initiated. After completing
this phase Senior amin records all details on a draft
khatian and presents certified version to owner. After
this phase, if any objections arise then cases are heard
by ASO and decisions are recorded in violet. There is
scope of appeal after this stage and ZSO and ASO hear Fig. 1. Steps of Land Surveying in Bangladesh[1]
appeals at Upazilla. Appeals may be forwarded to district
where decisions marked in black. After that Entails maps
are corrected, amalgamated and splitting up of jamas
(interests) by the permanent surveyors takes place. After
this stage both khatians and maps were printed. Finally
the copies of the ROR are passed to DC, thana and union There are two types of land owner- individual land
land offices. The land surveying process is shown in the owner and organization based land owner. All the land
figure 1 owners regardless of their types need to get various ser-
vices from the land offices. The services include getting
the land deeds, land measurement, ownership transfer
B. Land Management:
activities including selling and buying, getting resolution
The land management system Bangladesh is totally of the land disputes etc. For getting all the services, the
obsolete and outdated. The complete system depends land owner is bound to go to land office. For getting
entirely on the manpower efforts. The land management the land deeds the land owner has to apply to the land
includes maintaining the records of the land, selling and office for the land deed. The request is approved by the
buying of the land, Ownership transfer of the land in land officer and the land deed is prepared accordingly.
various ways, creating the land deeds and their mainte- For selling and buying of the land the land owner has
nance, Land related disputes management, Updating the to go to the land office to complete the land ownership
land map and information, tax and revenue collection transfer. There are a group of people who are known
and many other things. There are many land offices as deed writers. The land owner has to prepare a land
throughout the country and every land office has its land ownership transfer deed by the help of deed writers. The
staffs for maintaining the land management activities. deed is approved by the land office and the ownership
Each land office has a land officer and many land staffs transfer is complete. The whole process requires a couple
that collectively perform the management of land. of days to complete.
 III. BOTTLENECKS OF THE EXISTING constructions. On the other hand the demands for the
SYSTEM agricultural land are rising due to the increasing number
The current land management system of Bangladesh of population in the country. All the above facts signify
is backdated and error prone. The obsolete procedure that the amounts of land which are available in the
and lack of utilization of the technological resources country are very much inadequate in contrast to the
have made the system more accessible to corruption. number of people. As a consequence its becoming a
The whole system is conducted manually without tough challenge to maintain and manage the land system
modern concepts, equipment and technology. As a result of the country appropriately. Moreover due to the scarcity
huge amount of disputes and confusions exist in the of land in comparison to number of people, the conflicts
management of land. Since the land property is most and clashes in the society are increasing day by day.
valuable one to any person, the quarreling and clash for About 80% of the conflicts of Bangladesh are triggered
the land remain to exist for decades. due to land related disputes. Since the problem is severe,
there should be resolution to this. This situation is no way
acceptable in this age of technological progression since
• The error prone obsolete system has made an oppor- most of the developed countries have adopted modern
tunity for the corrupted people to encounter various method and technology to cope up with their problems.
types of corruption in the land management. As a Our motivation to this model project was to employ the
result lots of problems like fake land deed, fake modern technology to resolve the land related problems
ownership, illegal capturing of others land, bribery of Bangladesh.
etc. have been introduced.
• The quarrels and disputes which now arise among V. RELATED WORKS
the land owners are mostly due to corrupted and
obsolete system. About eighty percent of the cases Many researchers have tried to study the land manage-
are filed today are only due to land related disputes. ment system of Bangladesh from different perspectives.
This will remain as a big threat and a burning Many have suggested some reformations in the land
problem until the land system is fully modernized management policies but none has come up with a feasi-
and technologically rich. ble implementation. Barkat et al. have done an extensive
• Since the surveying of land is conducted manually work to suggest a feasible land use policy[2]. Choudhury
without the help of modern technology, there always et al. tried to put a model of land management by
remains the chance of error in the calculation of area scanning the current paper based maps and convert
of the land or finding out the boundary of the land. the images into scalable vector graphics (svg) format
• The land maps which are drawn contain many into database[3]. Whereas Nepal et al. have shown the
errors due to error prone measurement of the land degradation of agro-based land due to inappropriate
boundary. Besides, since the land map is drawn management of land[4]. Hasibur has done a similar
and updated manually by hand, there remains a type of work where he has studied the adverse effect
possibility of producing erroneous land map which of human created causes and pollutions in shrinking
is a major drawback of the current system. of the cropped land[5]. Zulfiqar has worked on the
• The land related services take a long time to accom- issues and potentials for sustainable land management
plish since all the tasks are accomplished manually. in Bangladesh[6]. Shoeb has analyzed the corruptions
Besides, due to enormous scope of corruption the and inefficiencies in different sectors of lands[7].
land owners face a huge problem in getting their
service in due time. VI. DLMS AND IT’S KEY FEATURES
• There are many middle persons who create a lot Digital Land Management System or in short DLMS
of problems in performing the land related tasks. is our model system by which the land areas of any
They keep liaison with the land staffs and build a country like Bangladesh can be managed digitally with
strong network that jointly run the corruption based the help of modern technology. The overall range of
system. land system tasks starting from the surveying of the
land to the land management is managed in new way.
IV. OUR MOTIVATION It is a new concept of replacing the existing errors and
Bangladesh is a land based agronomic country. Bulks bottlenecks of the current system with a new technology
of the people in this country are directly or indirectly based system. The key features of DLMS include GPS
connected to land or land related livelihoods like farm- based land surveying, automatic map drawing and online
ing, cultivation, agri-business etc. The extent of agri- land management. These key features are described in
cultural land is being constricted day by day due to the following-
the expansion of mills-factories and housing related
A. GPS based Land Surveying: y3) and so on until all corners are taken.
One of the important features of DLMS is GPS based
We can now calculate the area by multiplying the
land surveying. GPS stands for Global Positioning
coordinates of the corners found previously using the
System. GPS device is one of the location tracking
polygon area formula:
devices. This is an electronic device which is commonly
used for detecting the position of any place by the help
1
of latitude and longitude value of that place. This device A = × {(x1 y2 ) − (x2 y1 ) + (x2 y3 ) − (x3 y2 ) + (x3 y4 )
2
can directly communicate with the artificial satellites
− (x4 y3 ) + (x4 y5 ) − (x5 y4 ) + (x5 y1 ) − (x1 y5 )}
to find the latitude and longitude value of any place.
Once the latitude and longitude value of any place is B. Automatic Map Drawing:
known the position of the place can be easily found. Another important feature of DLMS is automatically
The amin or land measurer has to take the GPS device drawing of the map of land which is surveyed without
with him and go to the land which has to be measured. the help of any human effort. In this case we have taken
All he has to do is to find the coordinates of the corner the help of Google Map. Google map has API where
points of the land with the help of this device and note there are functions which can draw the line by using the
it down. GPS land surveying can be classified by a coordinate. We have used the line drawing function to
range of relative ranging from low-to-moderate, 1 part draw the map of the polygonal shaped land which takes
in 104, through to the ultra-high 1 part in 107 or better as parameter the GPS values of the corner point of the
accuracies. land. The boundary lines are drawn above the Google
Map as an overlay image which is our desired land map
• Category A (Scientific) : better than 1 ppm drawn from the GPS based land surveying. The whole
• Category B (Geodetic) : 1 to 10 ppm process is completed without any human effort.
• Category C (General Surveying) : lower than 10
C. Online Land Management:
ppm.
The most important feature of DLMS is online based
Category A surveys principally incorporate those surveys Land Management system. This feature enables the land
commenced for precise engineering, deformation owners and others to accomplish their land related tasks
analysis, and geodynamic applications. Category B online. The online land management includes the entire
surveys embrace geodetic surveys commenced for important tasks related to land management. There are
the establishment, densification and maintenance of two sides of the land management, one is land owner side
control networks to support mapping. Category C and the other is land office side. The owner side online
surveys mainly incorporate lower accuracy surveys, land management includes the following facilities-
primarily undertaken for urban, cadastral, geophysical
• Land Account for every land owner
prospecting, GIS and other general purpose mapping
• See the owned land information online
applications[8].We have made the use of this feature
• See the entire land map online
of GPS device to find out the boundary lines of any
• Search for any type of land online
land. Every small piece of land can be imagined as
• Buy and sell the land online
geometrically polygon irrespective of its shape. To find
• Advertise for selling any land online
out the boundary lines of any piece of land, we have
• Bid to buy any land online
to find the latitude and longitude of the corner points
• Get the pdf copy of the land deed online
of the edges of the polygon. After the corner points
• Complain against any land dispute online
coordinates are known, we will input the data to our
• Pay the tax or land revenue online
DLMS system and the system will find out the area and
• Ask for any land related query online
boundary of the surveyed land. In calculating the area
and boundary of the measured land, we have used the Similarly the land office side will have the adminis-
Google map API to process the input data. trative facility to maintain the land related tasks online
and to give the services to the land owner online. Each
of the land staff will have a staff account. The official
• Area Calculation using GPS value tasks which are accomplished online can be done by
We have to outline the piece of land by taking the logging into the staff account. The land staff account will
corner points coordinates using GPS so that we get a be divided into some types like grade-1 staff account,
closed figure where all the sides are straight lines. If grade-2 staff account or officer account. The various staff
the area to be calculated contains curves, we have to account will have different administrative facilities with
outline the curves as closely as to make a straight line. different security level. Any complain or modification in
Now we can label each corner (x1, y1), (x2, y2), (x3, the land map will be finalized by the officer account
that is in charge of the land office. No unauthorized
modification of the land information or the land map
will be allowed without the consent of the corresponding
land owner. Any final change in the land database will
be instantly visible in the land map of the country.
VII. HOW OUR MODEL WILL REDUCE ISSUES
RAISED IN CURRENT SYSTEM
Digital Land Management System (DLMS) uses an
automatic online system for managing the land issues of
the country rather than following the traditional system.
The instant and easy access to the online services gives Fig. 2. Homepage of DLMS Website
the land owners and other stakeholders a well manage-
able interface through which they can accomplish their
land related tasks sitting on their home. Since the online
system gives the individual land owner the facility to
manage their land properties in home, the chance of
inefficiency and longevity to accomplish the land related
task diminishes greatly. Moreover, online management
of the land properties helps to reduce the chance of
corruption magnificently since the tasks are performed
by the land owners directly. The surveying of land is
done through GPS which reduces the chance of errors Fig. 3. Informations of Land Offices are Shown in Website
in measuring the land. In addition to this, the automatic
drawing of land maps ensures the accuracy of mouza
maps which is not possible in current system. In a to achieve levels of enhancement in various magnitudes
nutshell, by using DLMS a land owner can manage his of land management and eliminating the corruption and
land properties online at anytime from anywhere of the mismanagement prevailing in Bangladesh. It is apposite
world. at this juncture to establish an approximation of the
VIII. IMPLEMENTATION OF OUR SYSTEM system drawbacks and possible errors. We can start with
AND DLMS WEBSITE the surveying of land with the GPS device. It is not
We have implemented our proposed Digital Land challenging to predict why there rests a possibility of
Management System (DLMS) and created a website to defining the boundary lines and hence to compute the
test the functionality of our implementation. Our Web- area of any land with this device. For our test case,
site (http://www.dreamchasersoft.com/dlms/) contains we measured the area of the lands of our university
almost all the functionality of our proposed system. We and its surroundings. For this purpose we used a GPS
have demonstrated the Automatic Map Drawing system device having the aptitude of 5 meters preciseness.
by inputting the GPS data in our website. Our system Consequently, our measured area is not fully precise but
draws the map of the surveyed land as an overlay to contains a small amount of error which is more or less
the Google Map. We have used Google Map API for negligible in comparison to the area of the land. From our
this purpose. We have also implemented the Automatic calculation the error percentage was very negligible in
Deed Generation, Searching throughout the drawn map, comparison to the size of the lands. Dry air, water vapor,
Sample Land Office Database and various functionalities
related to land management. Each land owner can have
an account in our system and they can accomplish their
land related tasks online without going to land office.
They can also advertise for land selling and buying
through our system. Some of the screenshots of our
website interface are given here.
IX. FEASIBILITY AND PROSPECTS OF OUR
MODEL
Given the aforementioned description, it is obvious
that implementation of DLMS is not merely the comput- Fig. 4. Automatically Drawn Map of some Lands as an Overlay in
erization of a land system, but the ability of technology Google Map
 TABLE I
A PPROXIMATE C OST A NALYSIS FOR S ETTING UP ONE L AND R EFERENCES
O FFICE [1] CARE, ”Land Policy And Administration In Bangladesh: A
Literature Review ”, CARE SDU Reports and Studies, May 2003.
Setup Materials Quantity Approximate Cost [2] Barkat et al.,”Towards a Feasible Land Use Policy of
in Taka Bangladesh”, for Association for Land Reform and Development
Desktop Computer 2 50,000 (ALRD), August 2007.
[3] Choudhury et al., ”A Web-based land management system for
Modem 2 2,000 Bangladesh ”, Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT),
2011 14th International Conference, Page(s): 321 - 326, 22-24
Internet Connection 2 PCs 3,000 Dec, 2011 .
[4] Nepal et al.,”Assessing Land-use Change and Land Degradation
Training of Staffs 5 Staffs 15,000 in Bangladesh”, Stamford Journal of Environment and Human
Habitat, Vol 1, July 2012.
GPS Device 2 30,000 [5] Hasibur, ”Agricultural Land Use and Land sus-
ceptibility in Bangladesh: An overview”, from
Total Cost 1,00,000 http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GlobalFiles/
agriculturallanduse.pdf
[6] Zulfiqar, ”Sustainable Land Management in Bangladesh: Issues,
Constraints and Potentials”, BIDS Conference Room, November
hydrometeors, and other particulates in the atmosphere 2011.
may lead to some precision errors. These errors must [7] Shoeb, ”Land management system and Digi-
be properly considered to achieve the highest precision tal Bangladesh”, The Daily Star, July 9, 2013
from http://archive.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-
in surveying using Global Positioning System (GPS) details.php?nid=213835
signals. The errors can commonly be categorized into [8] Chris,GPS Satellite Surveying ,SNAP-UNSW, 1999 from
three distinct sets; satellite dependent errors, propagation http://www.gmat.unsw.edu.au/snap/gps/gps survey/chap2/232.htm
[9] The Survey Advisory Board,”Standards and Guidelines For land
dependent errors, and receiver dependent errors[9]. All surveying Using Global Positioning System Methods”, for Wash-
the facts described above can lead to some sort of wrong ington State Department of Natural Resources,August 2004.
calculation. Again, there is a possibility that the person
involved with taking the GPS reading can do some
mistakes and an error prone outcome may be obtained.
Moreover, in order to fully implement our project at
national level, it is necessary to access the National
ID Database of the country. The access to National ID
Database can help to ensure the security and authenticity
of the system. Currently we have no access to National
ID Database which is surely an obstacle to check the
authenticity of the land owners. However, in an overall
sense our proposed land management system works very
well showing a tremendous improvement to the existing
land management system. The approximate cost analysis
for setting up 1 land office to adopt our system is shown
in tableI

X. CONCLUSION
The existing land management system of Bangladesh
is totally beyond the light of modern technology. Every
year a huge amount of money is wasted to resolve the
land related disputes. Furthermore, there is the burning
problem of corruption in different levels of this sector.
All of these problems can be readily checked if the
DLMS can be properly adopted in this country. The
adoption of DLMS can radically change the land man-
agement structure of the country. The use of modern
technology will greatly save the time and human effort
to accomplish any task. Though the initial set up requires
some time, the fastness of service, reduction of cost and
eradication of poverty will surely compensate the cost of
this adoption.

View publication stats