Governance in Land Acquisition Process: A Study on Shreehatta Economic Zone, Moulovibazar

Abstract

Land acquisition in Bangladesh for development activities is considered a critical issue. This study attempts to explore the existing scenario of the governance in the land acquisition process at Shreehatta Economic Zone, Moulovibazar, Bangladesh. This study is based on both the primary and secondary sources of data. The primary data was collected from 55 respondents which include both administrative officials and the project affected people and the secondary data was collected from different renowned journals, official documents of the administration, newspapers, and other relevant sources. The study reveals that there exists malpractices in the land acquisition process, where project-affected people do not get fair compensation and they are forced to pay bribe for getting compensation. In spite of having national and international guidelines for land acquisition, officials unethically acquire the agricultural land by misusing their discretionary power which leads the project affected people to more vulnerability.