Government vows to settle 2 seized-land cases daily

The newly formed Land Utilization Management Central Committee led by Vice President U Nyan Tun has vowed to settle all complains of seized land reported to the committee, within a year.

The announcement was made at a press conference, held at the Ingyin Hall of the Ministry of Environmental Reservation and Forestry in Nay Pyi Daw, to draft a future plan of action for the Land Utilization Management Central Committee that was formed on September 18.

The Seized Land Investigation Commission, instituted by the Union Parliament, have 745 cases of seized land complains at present.

“Our target is to settle all the 745 cases that have been reported to us”, said U Ohn Than, Vice Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation.

“We will finish our jobs and ensure that we stick to the rules in order to avoid such issues in the future. We will have discussions with former land owners as well”, said Union Minister U Win Tun, who is a member of the committee.

The Land Utilization Management Central Committee will be led by Vice President U Nyan Tun as the President, two ministers from Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation will be the Vice Chairmen and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Home Affairs will function as the Secretary of the committee. Chief Ministers from all states and divisions will be members of the committee.

Under the central committee, land utilization management sub-committees have been formed in every state and division on district, township, and ward levels.

The District/Township committee will conduct field trips to survey seized land and the village sub-committee will scrutinize and ensure the data collected is accurate.

The seized land complains reported to the Investigation Committee include farmlands seized by the military and private companies for government projects. 565 out of the 745 complains concern land seized by the military.

Vice General Wai Lwin, the Minister of Defence, confessed that the military seized 297000 acres of land across the nation.

Speaker Thura Shwe Man has also sent a formal letter to the President requesting restoration of seized land to the former owners, if the land are no longer in use.