Illegal route to prosperity

In the past three to four years, the country witnessed an unprecedented boom in land prices giving birth to many nouveau millionaires, and even billionaires, but recent revelations of how some dealers were trying to register even huge swathes of government land in their own names is a clear indicator that not all of them have taken the legal route to prosperity. It is evident from some stories, which have come to public knowledge in recent times, that lured by quick and enormous profits many different land-related illegal activities have been taking place right under our noses.



According to a news report carried by this paper Friday, the government has in the recent days thwarted a series of schemes by land dealers to register land, both public and private, in Kathmandu worth Rs 13 billion in their names. Their modus operandi: Manipulating the fieldbooks at the Land Revenue Office and Survey Office to insert the names of fake owners. Just last month, this daily had carried a similar news report about how the Supreme Court had given a verdict against a group of individuals who were trying to register 43 ropanis of government land located at a prime location in capital’s New Baneshwar area in their names.



The above examples are a clear pointer that these reported cases are just the tip of the iceberg. With the country awash with cash remitted by our workers abroad, and people reluctant to invest in the manufacturing or the services sector because of the volatile political climate, real estate business transactions were abysmally high until a few months back when the government instructed commercial banks of the country to limit their exposure to loans in the housing and realty sector to below 40 percent. At one point, land prices had soared to such a high that Nepalis were disposing just a portion of their property here in the country and buying houses in the US. It is evident now that such astronomical rises in prices of real estate has brought with it all kinds of evils into the sector.



While identifying the moles in the public offices who are working in collusion with the land dealers may be the easier part, finding out all those land records where data has been manipulated might be the bigger challenge staring at the government considering that the way in which data is maintained in our public offices is still quite archaic. The government is presently tallying the fieldbooks of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts with original data sheets which have thankfully been micro-filmed but how it will rectify the mess in other places where there are no micro-films of original copies is a daunting question. The government indeed has a tough task at hand.

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