Take for instance, the Land Revenues Office in Dillibazaar. The office building is new, and, compared to the old one, cleaner. However, management remains a major bugbear. [break]
The toilets stink. There is no proper guidance system. The officials are overburdened. There appears to be a help desk but it is manned by single person, who often appears to be at the end of his tether. Often, there is no one at the help desk.
It is very difficult for people without adequate knowledge of the system to find their way around. Two women were asked if they faced problems and they declined to answer.
But there were others who were more than willing to talk.
Last week, Madhu Sudan Bhattarai, of Gorkha, had come to get land ownership certificates. He had been in the office for three days. He said he expected the work to get done in about a month. “I expected the delay.”
Similarly, Hari Prasad Timilsena from Nuwakot had come to the office at 11 am on Tuesday. He had lost his land ownership certificate and wanted to get a new one issued. By 3 p.m., Timalsena was still not done.
Timalsena, an ex-government official, who is now self-employed as a farmer, said that computerization of records should have assisted the public considerably.
He argued that once the visitors had handed in registration papers, proof of citizenship and other relevant documents to the concerned officials the process should have been smooth.
Given the crowd, it´s not entirely justifiable to blame the officials. The compulsion to undertake multiple tasks and lack of proper arrangement of records makes an otherwise simple task, Herculean for the officials.
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