Govt plans land reward for landholding whistleblowers

KATHMANDU, SEP 29 -

The government is all set to reward persons giving information on households holding land beyond the ceiling fixed by the government.

The new Land Bill, which is in the bill committee of the Cabinet, has proposed offering informers 25 percent of the ‘hidden land’ beyond the ceiling after taking action against the person having such landholding.

The existing Land Act 1964, which was amended in 2002, has a provision of rewarding 10 percent cash of the value of the ‘hidden land.’

“The reward provision was made by keeping in mind the attraction attached with land ownership these days,” Lalmani Joshi, the secretary at the Ministry of Land Reforms and Management (MoLRM), said. The bill has, however, not changed the landholding ceiling.

The current Land Act provisions that a person or household may hold a maximum of 10 bighas of land in the Tarai and inner Tarai regions, 25 ropanies of land in Kathmandu Valley and 70 ropanies in all hilly regions.

Besides this, a person or household can hold an additional one bigha in the Tarai and five ropanies each in Kathmandu Valley and other hilly areas, except Kathmandu, according to the Act.

Two land reports submitted to Prime Minister Baburam Ram Bhattarai this week, has, however, suggested reducing the land holding drastically.

With the current Act suggesting implementing the ceiling provision by taking details of all the landholdings, the proposed bill has confined the provision of detail-taking. “The bill has provisioned that the state would collect details of only those landholding beyond the ceiling,” Joshi said.

According to him, the provision was made on the basis of financial consideration. “With the Finance Ministry not showing willingness to provide budget for collecting details of the landholding pattern, we had to go for such a provision,” he said. Earlier, the Supreme Court had ordered the government to implement the provision with regard to land ceiling after complaints were registered in the court. The proposed bill has also provisioned that if any person was holding land when his or her landholding was mapped first and the same person is still holding the land without having any land ownership certificate, the person will be entitled to get the land ownership certificate.

However, with the two reports suggesting adjustment in the existing land holding pattern, whether the government will take forward the proposed bill in parliament is still undecided.

Source:the-kathmandu-post

1Ropani