The system, which to begin with will be introduced in Demra Revenue Circle, is envisaged to give a huge boost to the city's revenues from its 293.29 sq km land. For instance, the land development tax alone will rocket to Tk 29.47 crore from Tk 9.47 crore in FY2003-04.

Instituting the CLMS in Demra would take about six months and cost about Tk 97 lakh. In return, the land ministry expects to earn an additional Tk 3.89 crore a year from this circle alone in taxes, official sources said.

After Demra, the system's coverage will be gradually expanded to the four other revenue circles of the capital. In the next six months the CLMS will come into operation in Tejgaon and Mirpur circles and in the third half-year time in Kotowali and Dhanmondi. So, 18 months from today, the city's land management will be entirely computerised.

Once in operation, the CLMS will effect drastic reduction in number of land disputes, as fake documents will be too hard to come by and will be of no use at all, said Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka M A Bari yesterday.

Under the CLMS, all information related to every piece of land, such as sales, transfers, current and former ownership, category of use etc, will be compiled and stored in a readily accessible database structured in line with the Revisional Settlement (RS) of 1969-83.

"We have developed a software named 'Bhumi', by which we can accumulate all sorts of information about land and landowners. It will enable us to provide detailed information about any piece of land within a very short time, which is not possible at the moment. So, anyone can verify and crosscheck the records of a plot before deciding to buy it or not," said Tahbub Alam, assistant commissioner (Land) of Demra and coordinator of Computerisation of Land Management System of Dhaka City project.

The system will also help us recognise the owners having land beyond the government ceiling, he added.

Initially the existing manual system will be kept running alongside the CLMS to avoid jolts and any untoward incidents as well as to ensure a smooth transition, land office sources said, adding the manual management will be phased out by stages.

DISPUTE REDUCTION
At present about 32 lakh land dispute cases are pending in the courts.

And what is most astounding is the fact that 15 crore people are accused in those cases, while the country's population is 2 crore less than that -- 13 crore. The wonder has its roots in the plaintiffs' habit of accusing the same people again and again, in as many cases as possible.

Tahabul said, "The root cause of the present zillions of land disputes lies in the age-old decrepit system of record keeping. Loopholes and disorder abound in the manual land record maintenance, which are misused and abused by the land-greedy. It is also easy for them to forge papers to swindle the real owners of the realty."

In the existing manual record keeping system, it is difficult to detect and check swindling. But, once the CLMS replaces the manual land management system of the colonial era, it will be well nigh impossible for the cheats and grabbers to produce phoney papers, he added.

Land grabbers generate a large segment of the land disputes.

Sources at the land ministry said, after someone encroaches on a government land he usually bribes dishonest officials to help him file a civil suit. And once the case over the land is lodged, it can take decades before the court hands down a final judgement.

In the meantime, the grabber continues to make use of and profit by the land.

A recent study conducted by Prof Abul Barakat of Dhaka University Economics department found 33 lakh acres of the country's public land, including cropland allotted to the landless and destitute, being possessed by encroachers.

According to another survey of the land ministry land grabbers are most active in the capital and its suburbs, with big-time realty developers leading the pack. While the encroachers possess 400,000 acres of the city's public land, the government has control over only 100,000 acres.

REVENUE HIKE
The CLMS will scale up the land revenue mainly by updating the land use categories, as umpteen plots in the city's five circles that had been recorded by the RS of 1969-83 as agricultural or residential ones are no more so. They have turned into residential or commercial ones. And the difference in terms of taxes is immense. While the rate of land development tax per decimal of agricultural land is Tk 1 only, it is Tk 22 for residential plots and Tk 125 for commercial ones.

An assessment survey conducted in Sarulia Mouza of Demra under the project found the area of agricultural land there to have dwindled from 29,649 decimals as recorded by the RS to a mere 6,569 decimals. The rest have over the years been transformed into housing plots widening the residential area from 7,988 to 27,728 decimals and the commercial acreage from 23.48 to 56.88.

So, the updated taxation on Sarulia realty will treble the revenues -- from the current Tk 4.98 lakh to Tk 13.27 lakh.

Tahbub said, after remapping the land use categories, the revenue from Demra Circle would jump by 244.37 percent, lifting the figure from Tk 1.59 crore to Tk 5.49 crore.

The land revenue from Tejgaon Circle would rise by 270.34 percent or from Tk 2.96 crore to Tk 10.98 crore, Mirpur Circle by 36.27 percent or from Tk 2.93 crore to Tk 3.99 crore.

The hike in case of Kotowali Circle would be 376.62 percent or from Tk 1.06 crore to Tk 5.06 crore, and in Dhanmondi Circle 327.24 percent or from Tk 91.90 lakh to Tk 3.92 crore.