Azerbaijan dissolves State Cartography Committee

/By AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

The State Committee for Land and Cartography of Azerbaijan has been dissolved at the order of President Ilham Aliyev.

The president signed a decree on the elimination of the committee, dividing its functions between the State Committee on Property Issues, the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry and the State Border Service.

In an effort to ensure the uniform management and regulation of property rights, the president observed the Paragraph 32 of Article 109 of the Constitution while adopting the decision.

Zahid Oruj, a Member of Parliament, told Qafqazinfo, that creating a single state body under certain structures is at the president's competence and the committee's elimination was part of the structural reforms carried out in Azerbaijan.

"The new decision will further ensure the interests of proprietors through facilitating the registration of the houses and piece of lands," he added.

Oruj noted that the structural reforms are not related to the fall of oil prices in the global markets and the limited budgetary resources.

The State Committee for Land and Cartography was expected to receive about $5.26 million from the state budget in 2015.

Pursuant to the decree, the State Committee on Property will from now on function in the area of state land cadastre, land management, surveying, land market organization, state land registry, submission to the Presidential Administration of maps of municipalities in the electronic media and paper, as well as quarterly inquiries about changes that have occurred on land owned by the state, municipal and private property.

The State Border Service will co-conduct the delimitation and demarcation of Azerbaijan's state borders, including the boundary waters and Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea together with the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry.

The rest of the eliminated committee's functions, including the land monitoring, restoration and improvement of soil fertility, geodesy, topography, cartography, gravimetry and delimitation of territorial units have been passed to the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry.

The Cabinet of Ministers is prescribed to prepare and submit proposals to president on issues emerging from the decree within two months.

The State Committee for Land was established on July 17, 1992 and re-established as the State Committee for Land and Cartography through merging with the State Committee for Geodesy and Cartography in 2001.