Awang Tengah (front second left) arrives at the Landas Summit 2025 dinner themed ‘Landas Winterland’ in Kuching last night. — Photo by Chimon Upon

KUCHING (Feb 27): The Sarawak Land and Survey Department (Landas) recorded a revenue of over RM600.62 million last year, revealed director Awang Zamhari Awang Mahmood.

“The year 2024 recorded a revenue collection of RM600,620,994.76 with the three highest collections involving land premium amounting to RM293.13 million; land tax amounting to RM202.32 million; and mining royalty amounting to RM60.39 million,” he said in his speech at the closing ceremony for the Landas Summit 2025 here last night.

Sarawak Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan, who is also Second Minister of Natural Resources and Urban Planning, officiated at the event.

Awang Zamahari said as the operating costs for the department’s 2,993 staff amounted to RM182.02 million, Landas’ revenue collection involved a surplus of RM418.6 million.

On the implementation of the Village Expansion Scheme (SPS) and Resettlement Scheme (SPK) under the provisions of the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) and the people’s project allocation until Dec 31, 2024, he said 81 SPS and SPK projects have been approved.

These will provide 7,952 residential lots at an estimated implementation cost of RM1.436 billion.

Of the 81 projects, 24 projects have been completed.

Under SPS and SPK schemes, he explained that residential lots have been approved for the development of affordable housing under the Housing Development Corporation (663 lots), Land Custody Development Authority (121 lots), and Borneo Development Corporation (75 lots).

On land reclamation matters, he said as a development facilitation agency, the department has 456 projects involving 6,000 lots with an area of 3,464ha reclaimed at a cost of RM560.3 million.

Among the government projects that have successfully completed land reclamation to date are:

• RM2.23 million for 147 telecommunications tower projects
• RM45.55 million for Kampung Datu redevelopment involving 146 lots
• RM11.6 million for development of Bebuling Agropark in Spaoh, Betong involving 209 lots covering an area of 252ha
• electricity transmission line project covering 1,230ha and a distance of 265.15km
• 40.2km Sarawak Sabah Link Road with land acquisition completed in 2024
• RM71 million for the Darul Hana Kuching Development Project for Kampung Pulo Ulu involving 117 lots
• RM66.08 million for the ART Kuching Sector – Blue and Red Line Project involving 90 lots
• pre-acquisition of Bintulu Port where land valuation plays a key role in ensuring that land values are reasonable and affordable.

“This success is the result of efficient monitoring and coordination with the agencies involved, especially in overcoming issues on the ground,” Awang Zamhari said.

As of the end of last year, he said perimeter surveys had been completed for 1,187,427ha of Native Customary Rights (NCR) land throughout Sarawak and 925,934ha had been gazetted as Bumiputera Communal Reserve (Agriculture) under Section 6 of the Sarawak Land Code.

He said efforts to improve the surveys of individual lots under this programme continue to be strengthened by improving the technology and measurement methods used.

As of the end of 2024, 115,407ha had been measured as individual lots involving 97,018 lots.

He pointed out that good urban planning requires accurate data and analysis by predicting development trends, population needs, and optimising the use of available resources for sustainable and inclusive development.

As of December 2024, Landas had received 5,846 applications for development purposes such as agricultural land subdivision, land conversion and subdivision, land subdivision plans, engineering plans, building plans, and depositing recommendations.

Of these, 229 applications have been approved involving 66,818 residential unit components, 12,274 shop house units, and 307 commercial mall units.

The department also received 966 land use and building plan applications, of which 883 have been completed.

In the same year, several local plans and action area plans were approved to enable more planned development involving Daro, Sadong Jaya, and Sungai Asap, as well as three action area plans involving the Integrated Administrative Centre (IAC) Samarahan, Kuching Sentral, and Pending.

For land title registration, as of Dec 31, 2024, a total of 770,885 land title deeds had been registered throughout Sarawak involving an area of 2,470,381ha or 6,104,311 acres.

Kuching Division recorded the highest number of land title deeds with 187,240 lots, which is 24 per cent of the total title deeds registered.

“Registration of land transaction instruments continues to record excellence with the achievement of 100 per cent same day registration,” he said.

For 2024, a total of 94,620 instruments were registered, where 90 per cent of the instruments we