ILAM, April 21: The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has directed Fun Park to vacate the public land occupied by the company in Chepti, Mai Municipality-2.
The anti-graft body has directed the multi-crores company to vacate the park, which is spread over 218 ropanis of land and has been built by Happy Dreams Chepti Pvt Ltd.
The CIAA has concluded that Fun Park has occupied 132 ropanis of public barren land and Maikhola, and 45 ropanis of land belonging to a community forest in an unauthorized manner. As only the remaining 41 ropanis of land seems to be owned by the company, the anti-graft body has also instructed it to vacate the public barren land and Maikhola land and land belonging to the forest.
The anti-graft body had sent a letter to the Ilam-based district administration, Division Forest Office and Mai Municipality, where the park is located, to vacate the park land. After the CIAA’s letter, the meeting held on Thursday with the representatives of the three agencies, the Land Registry and the Surveyors Office also decided to issue a notice to vacate the park land within 35 days.
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Divisional Forest Officer Dan Bahadur Shrestha said that according to the authority's letter and the decision of the district body meeting, the division is preparing to issue a public notice to vacate the park.
“A public notice will be issued by tomorrow to vacate the park and a letter will also be sent to the owner,” Shrestha said.
On July 26, last year, the central office of the CIAA decided to give instructions to vacate the public land occupied by Fun Park. According to the decision, on August 5, the authority's office in Itahari sent a letter to the district administration, forest and Mai Municipality for the implementation of the decision.
After the authority's letter, a meeting of the three agencies held on August 25 decided to hold another meeting on August 31. In the meeting on August 31, no decision could be taken because of 'difficulty in time management'. And, since then, the meeting could not be held. After the decision was not implemented, the CIAA again took action through the Forest Division.
CDO Shrawan Kumar Pokharel said that according to the CIAA’s letter, a meeting was also held with the representatives of political parties in the district on Thursday.
"An all-party meeting in the district was also called to discuss the matter of vacating the fun park land," said Pokharel, "That meeting also decided to proceed according to the CIAA’s decision."
He said that even though the authority's letter was received long ago, it has not yet been implemented. "Now a notice will be issued to vacate the park," he said.
It was said that the plan was to invest a total of Rs 1 billion in the park in which, it is said, around Rs 750 million has already been invested. Even though a fun park was being built on the forest land, the involvement of the forest staff was also suspected as the forest division neglected to control it. The Forest Division had formed a team to probe the land of Fun Park.
Division Forest Officer Shrestha said that the investigation committee has already submitted its report and that the report’s conclusion matches that of the CIAA.
"It is mentioned in the report that even forest employees were involved in the construction of the park, but it was not seen in the investigation," Shrestha said.
