Sindhuli locals taxed for highway land

By Baburam Devkota,Sindhulimadhi, Aug. 23: Does this sound fair? People can no longer use plots of land along two national pride highways in Sindhuli for any purpose. They are not able to build on them, sell them or put them up as collateral for loans. Yet, because they have not been declared public, people still have to pay taxes for them.

This is the question people in Sindhuli are currently asking the government. The Madan Bhandari and Mid Hill highways, built with an investment of billions, did not follow the due process to get the land they pass through in Sindhuli district declared public. As a result, the owners are still having to assume legal ownership of the plots without being able to utilise them practically.

"The Madan Bhandari Highway took more than three Katthas of my land over five years ago. But the papers do not reflect that. The authorities still say that I own the land and tax me for it every year," lamented Than Raj Adhikari, resident of Banka, Dudhauli Municipality–1.

The Madan Bhandari Highway crosses the Dudhauli Municipality, Marin Rural Municipality and Hariharpurgadhi Rural Municipality of Sindhuli while the Mid Hill Highway crosses the Golanjor and Phikkal rural municipalities. Both these highways mandate that 15 metres of land on either side remain vacant, but they have not made the land that fall in this area public.

Suman Koirala, local of Haibar, Golanjor–6, protested that the government had also not compensated the owners. "Not only did we get nothing in return for the highway taking our land, we are further having to pay taxes for plots we do not have. This is an injustice," he said.

According to Purushottam Dahal, information officer at the Land Revenue Office, Sindhuli, the plots the roads pass through have not been removed from their roster. "The Madan Bhandari Highway is believed to have acquired over 1,000 plots of land and the Mid Hill Highway has acquired over 500 plots," he informed.

Dahal added, "As soon as the plots get removed from the roster, the government will have to compensate the landowners, which it is currently not in a position to do. This is what we have understood."

Dahal assumed that problems with compensation may have prevented the land from being declared public till now. 

Meanwhile, Engineer Prabhat Kiran Rai, information officer at the Madan Bhandari Highway Project (Eastern Section), said that they had written to the Survey Office to remove the related lands from the government's roster and make them public. "It is there work now," he said.

However, Saroj Shrestha, head of the Survey Office of Sindhuli, said that they had not received any letter from any office. "We have not been told anything," he said. "The roads began acquiring land without first removing them from private ownership. As a result, field maps still show private lands, not highways."