By Our Correspondent, Bhairahawa, July 24: Krishna Shrestha has a land and a house in a village at Ward 4 of Siddharthanagar Municipality.

However, he doesn’t have the land ownership document, which has been a major hurdle for him in applying for a mortgage loan from the bank.

Nevertheless, Shrestha has been paying the land tax every year. "Having a land and a house is great but not having its ownership document is stressful," said Shrestha.

As per Shrestha, the land was surveyed earlier but he has not received its ownership document yet. Like Shrestha, Maina Kumari Gurung also awaits the ownership document for her land at Ward 4.

She has built a house in the land and hopes to receive the ownership status. "It has been many years without the ownership. But the recent federal and local level system has raised my hope of soon receiving the ownership document," said Gurung.

There are many like Shrestha and Gurung who eagerly wait for the government to provide them with the land ownership documents. They have been pressing this demand for years now.

"I have assured our people to provide them with the land ownership documents. We also raised the issue several times in the municipal meeting but no concerns have been shown in the last four years," said Mukti Nath Yadav, chairman of Ward No. 4.

As per Yadav, there are 250 families without a landownership document in Ward 4. Yadav informed that the ward collects information and data of the lands and sends it to the municipality. The municipality then proceeds the record to the survey office asking for the ownership documents.

"We hope the municipality will solve the issue this time," said Yadav. While referring the matter to the officials at the Survey Office, Rupandehi, they informed TRN that most of the works related to Ward 4 had been completed.

"In the past two years, we provided the documents to over 400 village blocks. We look forward to providing the ownership documents to everyone in the next one and a half years," said Ajit Kunwar, chief at the survey office.

Kunwar informed over 1,300 village blocks are yet to receive documents across Rupandehi. "We hope that we receive our documents soon. The concerns from local level seem promising," said Shrestha