By Shiva Kumar Kashi
Hetauda, Feb. 4: Ashok Shakya, 61, who has been living in Lothar Bazaar on the border of Chitwan and Makwanpur districts, has never officially realised his ownership of the land he has been living in. The then government said that the public land was divided. Apart from a document given in 2014, there are no other documents to claim his land.
As the political transition progressed, he wondered how many times he would be evicted from his house and land.
Like Shakya, most people in Lothar Bazaar do not have land in their own name. However, it has been consumed for more than 60 years.
Meanwhile, the government is preparing to distribute the land-ownership certificates to landless Dalits, squatters and unorganised settlers by forming a Land Problem Resolution Commission across the country.
Shakya said: “Even after drawing the attention of dozens of ministerial-level delegations and some prime ministers about the problem, we have not got a chance to own the land. This time, hope has been reinforced.”
Though the land-related commissions have been formed in all 77 districts of the country, its small unit will reach the wards. The commission has started preparations to give land-ownership certificate to the landless Dalits, squatters and unorganised settlers by giving priority to Bagmati, Bakaya, Makwanpurgadhi and Hetauda sub-metropolis, including Manahari of Makwanpur.
Accordingly, facilitators have been deployed in the wards and every tol to identify such people in Manahari Rural Municipality, said chairman Ek Raj Upreti.
In Manahari, which is in the middle of Parsa National Park and Chitwan National Park, there is a problem with unorganised settlers.
Rajendra Chaulagai, head of the data collection unit for landless dalits, landless squatters and unorganised settlers, said that an action plan has been formulated to complete all works including data collection, map-making and allotment in Manahari by mid-July.
Trained facilitators have been deployed in villages and tols. “We have moved ahead with the work so that we can issue ownership cards within first four months of the next fiscal year,” Chaulagai said.
Chief Administrative Officer Devraj Chaulagai informed that thousands of bighas of land being used in the Rural Municipality are without title deeds and a conservation campaign has been started by identifying 900 large pieces of public land in the river uplift area of the village for the construction of the land bank.
Manahari, Makwanpurgadhi, Hetauda, Bakaiya and Bagmati have also stated that they have started the work of collecting data in the current fiscal year.
As per the preparation made by the commission, the legal arrangement has been made at the local level under the chairmanship of the head of local government and at the level of ward chairperson in the ward.
It has been said that five out of 10 local levels of Makwanpur will be given land in the first phase and the remaining five will be taken forward in the second phase.
–The Rising Nepal
