Bagerhat land record office

The Bagerhat sub-registrar and land record office with its 150 employees have been working out of a British-era building that was declared risky by authorities back in 2012. Strangely, the Public Works Department has not found a suitable alternative piece of land to construct new offices despite the fact that the money for relocation has been approved. The building in question used to be a district judge court; that moved out back in 1990 to new premises. The land record office was moved here in 1997 and today, we see that different parts of the building are in various stages of decay. Indeed, people who work here complain about more than the leaky roof that turns porous during the rainy season.

It is quite preposterous that things have been moving at such a snail's pace in relocating the land record office to a new location in a more modern building. It is not only the people who are in jeopardy should this ancient building collapse; with land deeds still preserved in written form, a collapse would spell disaster for the authorities as thousands of precious documents would be lost. One wonders how seven years can elapse and still the wheels of the bureaucracy fail to procure land and construct new premises for this very important district office for land registration and record keeping. Such a lackadaisical attitude towards people's safety is what has allowed thousands of buildings, both government and commercial, to operate decade after decade until an accident occurs. We hope immediate action is taken before such a disaster.