Milan Dzur - Gejdos, Slovakia
FIG Commission 7, Annual Meeting 1996, Budapest, Hungary
One Day International Conference, 18 June 1996
"Land Management in the Process of Transition"
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
I will try to make you acquainted with land management (LM) in Slovakia after the year 1989. This year a change of political system to democratic one has been realised in our country. We’ like to build the new democracy up. Owing to this change a view on LM has been changed which had been projected before, too. These projects solved only the technical side of tilling of the agricultural land but didn’t solve the question of tenurial relations to land and boundaries of property.
In the year 1964, according to the law 22, a new register of real estates has formed that replaced land register (Grundbuch). This system registered only using boundaries on agricultural land.
Almost all agricultural land was exploited by agricultural co-operative farms which adjusted limits and range of tilled areas only by the agrotechnical claims. Tenurial boundaries in the nature had disappeared and were registered only in the land register (Grundbuch). However, this land register (Grundbuch) has not been maintained.
Legislative
Law No. 229 from the year 1991 arranges tenurial relations to land.
Law No. 330 from the year 1991 arranges realisation of land management in Slovak Republic. Supplementary of this law from 1994 year includes forests in LM too. In accordance with this law two subjects of public sector participate in LM processes of elaboration.
Ministry of Agriculture - they order to make LM in private firms, its land offices confirms validity of LM.
Authority of Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre of Slovak Republic through its cadastral offices render the material from cadastre and after confirmation registered project of LM in cadastre, according to the law 330/1991.
For realisation of the tasks following this law or LM, responsible subjects concentrated their activities to those spheres:
- a preparation of methodical instructions
- a preparation of LM designers
- a choice of LM designers by public tenders
It has begun with minimal experiences and it may also have been the reason of too ambitious intentions. In very short time they were replaced by soberer thoughts.
Preparation of LM designers
About LM in right conception in our country we have begun to think in first months of the year 1990, immediately after the change of our political system. Perhaps the first professional meeting which was aimed to this topic was meeting "Land Management after the year 1990" in October 1990 organised by the Union of Slovak scientific-technical associations in the High Tatras.
The education of LM designers is secured by the Department of Geodesy and LM in Faculty of Civil Engineering of Slovak Technical University in Bratislava.
In the year 1991 Ministry of Agriculture has begun to organise the preparatory courses for LM designers in Agroinstitut Nitra. Each graduate of this course after passing the examinations obtains from Ministry of Agriculture the permission for projecting of LM . Each project of LM must be authorised by a person who owns this permission.
Methodical instructions
Instructions for projecting of LM the Ministry of Agriculture publishes in collaboration with Department of Geodesy and LM of Slovak Technical University (STU) and with Authority of Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre.
The first instruction was published at the beginning of the year 1992. But this instruction only solved collaboration of the state administration together with designers of LM. As follows were two instructions published. First for ranging of the original lots and the second for the acceleration and simplification of the arrangement of tenurial relations to land. Later in the year 1994 Ministry of Agriculture "Instruction for projecting of LM" was published. The responsible authority was Depl. Ing. Erich Geisse Chief of the Department of Geodesy and LM in Slovak Technical University. In the year 1994 this author published the text book "LM -projecting" for the students of the University.
At present Ministry of Agriculture prepares supplementary of "Instruction for projecting of LM". Besides these instructions there were published some other instructions, concerning the arrangement of tenurial relations of land only.
Choice of designers and order of LM
In Accordance with the law 330/1991 the expenditure connected with LM are assured by state budget. A choice of the designers and the conclusion of the contracts is realised by Ministry of Agriculture by the way of public competitions.
In the year 1992 the contracts were concluded for 52 cadastral territories. According to the government intentions the number of LM projects has been reduced for 21. The arrangement of the tenurial relations to land was given a priority. The other beginning projects were made only into the first stage of LM in to the original state of register (ROS).
The biggest project is for community Svaty Jur (area of 2146 hectares), and the smallest project is for community Vinohrady (area of 300 hectares).
The most expensive is the project Skalica - 240 thousand USD. About the cheapest is project Maly Cetin - 27 thousand USD about. The duration of the processing of the project is from 2 to 5 years - by the pretension. 7 projects have already approved by the Ministry of Agriculture, 2 of them have been staking out in the terrain.
Changes of Priority
In the past the establishment of legal relations to agricultural and forest land was neglected in our country, owing the first stage of land management the tenurial relations must be arranged. This fact makes the process of projecting and management tedious and complicated.
In the year 1993 the government accepted the "Conception of arrangement of the tenurial to land in Slovak Republic".
In the year 1994 was the law No. 180 legislated "about any measures for arrangement of the tenurial to land".
For discharging of these intentions, the government gave considerable means and LM backed down. According to the law 180, choice of private firms and conclusion of the contracts for making the Restored register of lands is realised by Authority of Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre and Ministry of Agriculture too. That register contents the valuation of land too.
First experiences
The elaboration of the LM project to the first stage - to the register of real states (ROS) is often the admirable performance in keeping with the neglected actualisation of the land register in the last 40 years.
After the assembling ROS the project elaboration of the new parcel arrangement of land is beginning. The big problem (like everywhere) is to achieve the agreement of 2/3 of LM participants according to the law.
For our people LM is certain new, unknown and they are accepted with the diffidence. For example in project Sarisske Michalany not even 4th version didn’t achieve agreement of the necessary number of participants. In the past as well as today the agricultural land is used and cultivated in considerable measure by the co-operative farms. If the land owners cultivated their land themselves they would value the advantages of LM the best.
The comparison of the original intentions with today state is not optimistic but we have obtained the valuable experiences. The new projects are begun and continued by LM too, but in very modest numbers.