KATHMANDU, Jan 5: The Kathmandu District Committee of the National Land Commission has claimed that the issue of landless squatters will be solved effortlessly if the due process is followed. Officials of the committee, during a press conference and interaction held at the National Land Commission on Monday, claimed that the Kathmandu Metropolitan City has dragged the process needlessly into controversy.

Chairman of the Kathmandu District Committee of the National Land Commission Shyam Krishna Prajapati said that he does not understand why the Kathmandu Metropolitan City complicated the issue when the land commission was formed by the federal government and had already moved forward within the process of resolving the landless squatters’ issue. 

"Kathmandu metropolis has entered into an agreement with the National Land Commission to carry out the work of collection of taxes, but it is not clear why the KMC used force to execute its decision against the spirit of the agreement," said Chairman Prajapati.

Prajapati says that the metropolis could have helped them collect the information to identify the genuine landless squatters to resolve the issue. 

“We back the idea of Kathmandu Metropolitan City that the landless squatters will be evicted from public land, but it'll be done systematically in a procedural way but not forcefully,” added Prajapati.

Sushila Khatiwada, a member of the National Land Commission’s Kathmandu District Committee informed Republica that their work was stalled after the Election Commission instructed them to halt all work when the Election Code of Conduct was in force.

Now that the Election Code of Conduct is no longer in force, the committee has decided to move forward in collaboration with 8 out of 11 local levels of Kathmandu Metropolis to resolve the problem of landless squatters. 

The commission has been carrying out its work in a strategic way in other districts where it has reached an agreements with the local bodies, said Khatiwada.

“There was no need to create a scene with the help of dozers while we were devising plans for the landless squatters in Kathmandu metropolis. This issue can be effortlessly solved by adopting a proper strategy,” said Khatiwada.

The National Land Commission is entering into an agreement with the concerned local governments to complete the process of data collection, verification and land distribution to the landless Dalits, landless squatters and unorganized inhabitants. 

As per the understanding, the local  governments will collect information through the ward, verify the applications, and make recommendations to the commission. 

In this regard, the Kathmandu District Committee under the National Land Commission is has already reached agreements with 8 out of 11 local levels in Kathmandu where the problem of landless squatters has been reported.

Similarly, another member of the committee, Motilal Lama, claimed that they are working day and night  for  the  identification  and management of  the genuine landless squatters.  According to the committee, after the formation of the National Land Commission, more than 1,200 land ownership certificates have been distributed in districts other than Kathmandu. 

The land commission of Kathmandu has requested all concerned agencies to work together to solve the problem through necessary coordination and cooperation.

 
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