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Department of Land Records and Surveys

department · partial (verified 2026-05-17)

Profile

Head
Md. Mahmudul Hasan
Role
Director General
Annual budget
—
Staff
2524
Established
1975
Legal basis
Established as an independent directorate in 1888 (reconstituted in its current form in 1975 following independence); operates under the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act 1950, the Survey Act 1875, and subordinate legislation of the Ministry of Land. Headquarters: Tejgaon, Dhaka-1208.

DLRS is executing two parallel digitization projects: (1) the EDLMS (Tk 383.50 crore, Korea EDCF-financed, BDS Phase 1 across 634 mouzas/933 sq km in six pilot sites, due October 2026) and (2) the SOC-DDS project (Tk 1,212.55 crore, government-funded, covering 260,310 geo-reference points across 470 upazilas and 133,188 mouza maps nationwide). As of May 2026, over 10 million e-mutation applications have been resolved but 500,000+ remain pending, prompting ministry directives to clear backlogs; drone-based cadastral surveys and GIS-based mauza map linkage are being piloted; a broader institutional reform to merge land registration and mutation procedures is under inter-ministerial review.

Recent activity

Provenance & notes

established_year: DLRS traces origins to 1885 (Survey Department) and 1888 (independent directorate); reconstituted in its current departmental form in 1975 post-independence. Wikipedia and BSS/TBS sources both confirm 1975 as the operative independent establishment date; 1888 is used as the legal founding in some official documents. staff_count: 2,524 is the sanctioned-post count from the November 2024 DLRS job circular (dlrs.teletalk.com.bd), covering 14 categories including surveyors, record keepers, khariz assistants, and peshkars -- this is the vacancy count in one circular and is a lower-bound proxy for sanctioned strength, not the full permanent establishment. annual_budget_bdt: not separately published; DLRS budget is embedded in the Ministry of Land and project-specific DPP allocations. current_head: multiple DLRS web pages list 'Md. Mahmudul Hasan' (also rendered 'Mahmud Hasan') as Director General Grade-1; an earlier listing showed 'Md. Saidur Rahman' -- the Mahmudul Hasan listing appears on the more recent officer page. head_since is null because no primary source gives the appointment date. verification_status is 'partial' because (a) the DG appointment date and current-head identity could not be confirmed from a dated primary source with SSL-verified access, and (b) annual budget figure is not publicly disaggregated. Key institutional note: DLRS and the Survey of Bangladesh (SoB, sob.gov.bd) are distinct -- SoB handles topographic and national mapping while DLRS handles cadastral records and mauza maps. The e-mutation platform is at mutation.land.gov.bd and is operated by the Ministry of Land, not DLRS directly, but DLRS provides the underlying cadastral data. The 10 million resolved / 500,000 pending e-mutation figures are from the BSS special report (May 11, 2026) citing Ministry of Land data -- these figures cover the national e-mutation system, not DLRS alone.

Sources