The recommendation is to be forwarded to the cabinet. [break]
A meeting of the Wildlife Reserve Land Problem Solving Committee held on Saturday recommended Rs 700,000 as compensation for land acquisition and another Rs 100,000 as other compensation for each household. There are 2,473 households in Kanchanpur.
“The meeting which had representatives from all major political parties decided that compensation was the best solution and thus it recommended a total of Rs 800,000 to be given to each household,” Puran Chand, chairman of the committee, informed myrepublica.com.
Chand further said, “It is not possible to cut the forests to give them lands. In any case there is no more space available.”
This is the 24th committee formed by the government to address the problems faced by the families displaced by the Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve some 10 years back.
“The earlier committees only engaged in sorting out and identifying the numbers of real victims,” an official of the Shuklaphanta reserve said on condition of anonymity.
The source also said that due to the delay, the number has now reached to a whopping 2,437 households. The original number of the displaced households was only around 300. He said that a total of 9,200 hectares of land is under encroachment in Kailali and Kanchanpur at present.
However, the government has yet to take decision on the thousands of other landless people in Kanchanpur and Kailali. Mainly, the landless include flood victims, who were displaced by flooding in Dohara and Mohana rivers last monsoon.
The other landless are freed Kamaiyas [former bonded laborers], including Haliyas [bonded plowmen], Kamalaharis [bonded housemaids] and Baklaharis.
Some 56 families of the freed Kamaiyas were given five kattha [0.42 acre] of land each some few months back. But the Haliyas, Kamalaharis and Baklaharis are still forced to live under temporary tents.
Besides, the government is also having difficulty in identifying the illegal encroachers who have migrated from the hills and are forcefully living around wildlife premises.
akanshya@myrepublica.com
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