 |
Kathmandu Friday August 17, 2001 Bhadra 01, 2058.
|
PM freezes land sales ahead of radical
reform measures
Announcement could be challenged in Court
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Aug 16 – Prime Minister Sher
Bahadur Deuba today brought a screeching halt to all
land sales in the country by announcing a freeze in land transactions until the government
introduces new land reform laws.
Announcing the revolutionary measures in the
House of Representatives today, which was aired live by state radio and television, the
Prime Minister said the steps were being taken "to make land available to the
land-less, the poor and the economically backward sections of the society."
This step would help in the creation of an
equitable society by utilizing the labour, skill and capital of the landlords in
productive field, the Prime Minister said, adding that the government would soon introduce
new legislation in parliament which would scale down the ceiling on land holdings so that
excess land could be distributed to the poor.
Soon after Deuba’s announcement, all land
transactions throughout the country came to a halt today, and will continue to remain so
until the promised legislation becomes law, which could take anywhere between a couple of
months to a year.
The main opposition party, CPN-UML, was quick to
welcome the annoucement. UML Spokesman, Pradeep Nepal said in a press release issued late
Thursday, "We welcome the annoucement, but it will be of no use and will not give any
output if the government fails to implement it."
The prevailing land ceiling in the Kingdom for
agricultural and household purposes respectively are 50 ropanis and eight ropanis in
Kathmandu Valley, 80 ropanis and 16 ropanis in the mountains and 25 bighas and 3 bighas in
the Terai (the plains), according to the officials of the Ministry of Land Reforms.
This is not the first time that Deuba has taken
bold land reform measures. While Prime Minister from 1995-97, Deuba had also abolished the
dual ownership system of agricultural land, giving away half of such land to
"mohis." Such mohis until then had rights to only one quarter of the land they
tilled, while the rest belonged to the landowner causing problems in productivity in
agriculture.
The Prime Minister’s new land reform
initiative may have come about after much hard-thinking, but the rebel Maoists also have a
role to play in it. According to reliable sources close to Deuba, the Maoist leadership
was demanding that the prime minister institute radical land reform measures before
expected negotiations as a show of his commitment to issues dear to the Maoists.
Reforming the nation’s land holding system
has been a battle cry of all communist parties. These parties and critics have always
charged that most of Nepal’s prime agricultural land has been held by a handful
minority of large land-owning families who form a powerful bloc within the governing
Nepali Congress and the opposition Rastriya Prajatantra Party.
The charges were partly proved true when
Deuba’s abolition of the "dual ownership" system in the mid-1990s was
challenged in the Supreme Court by groups aligned to the land-holding class in these
parties. The Supreme Court however backed the reform measures.
Some analysts say, the Prime Minister’s
latest initiative could also attract a similar challenge in the Supreme Court. The right
to hold, buy and sell property, including land, is one of the fundamental rights
guaranteed by the constitution, and any attempt to curtail that activity could be argued
as unconstitutional, they point out.
"It (Deuba’s announcement), no doubt,
is an infringement of the people’s right to hold property," says Surendra
Bhandari, an advocate of the Supreme Court. "But since the constitution also inspires
social reform, it also embodies that aspect. Both of these logic are equally forceful in
Prime Minister Deuba’s announcement."
Land reform in Nepal was first introduced by
King Mahendra in 2021 B.S., four years after he jailed the country’s first
democratically elected Prime Minister B. P. Koirala, who had also promised radical
reforms. Koirala could not bring his thoughts into practice due to the royal takeover in
2017 B.S.
Other Stories
|
