By Tikaram Upreti
Jhapa, July 4: The district committee of the Landless Squatters’ Problems Resolution Commission has received approximately 50,000 applications of landless squatters in Jhapa.
Lately, the commission has sped up the work of collecting applications from landless Dalits, squatters and unorganized settlers as a process of identifying the landless.
Chairperson of the district committee of the Commission Prem Giri said the committee had received nearly 50,000 applications, of which over 12,000 applications were of landless Dalits and squatters and the remaining of unorganized settlers.
He said the committee has sped up its work in all the municipalities of the district since the distribution of the land ownership certificates to squatters was one of the top priorities of the government.
“The committee will soon start its work at Mechi Municipality, Birtamod Municipality and Gauriganj Rural Municipality, once lockdown is eased,” he added.
Similarly, on the basis of the applications, the committee had already started a field survey in Kankai Municipality.
The committee has also targeted to complete the search and survey of the land in all municipalities by mid-December this year, said Giri.
Giri said, “The committee has been working with the plan of providing land ownership certificates to all landless people of Jhapa by mid-July next year.”
He however shared his worries that there might be some obstacles in achieving their targeted goal in the stipulated time frame due to the pandemic and monsoon havoc.
The commission aims to solve the problem of ward 4 and 5 of Gauradaha Municipality in the first phase and immediately distribute the land ownership certificate to landless people.
Earlier, the commission formed by the government completed the task of collecting data of landless families of those areas. A total of 672 families of both wards have submitted their claim for the land ownership certificate. Of these, the commission has decided to immediately issue land ownership certificates to 78 families after conducting on-site monitoring.
The government had formed the commission to speed up distribution of land ownership certificates to landless people and resolve the problem faced by them,