HEADLINE NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Statement of public importance
Govt to solve citizenship issue first, says Deuba

BY RITU RAJ SUBEDI

Kathmandu, Sept. 2: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba told the Parliament today that the government would first solve the problem of the citizenship certificate prior to distributing land, thereby resolving both the problems - landlessness and the issue of citizenship.

Giving a statement of public importance at the House of Representatives, Prime Minister Deuba said that the objectives of the proposed land reform programme were to provide land to the landless, poor and the economically backward people to reinforce the campaign for development and for building an equitable society. "The programme aims to utilize the landlord’s labour, skill and capital in productive works," the Prime Minister added.

Linking land reform with the citizenship issue, Deuba said the government has the policy that no Nepali citizen would be deprived of the advantage of land distribution due to lack of citizenship papers.

For several days, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Nepal Sadhvabana Party (NSP) have been obstructing the House proceeding against the proposed land reform programme. One of the issues they have raised was that programme could not be implemented without solving the citizenship issue. Lawmakers of the two parties continued shouting, albeit sporadically even today while the PM was speaking from the rostrum.

In his speech, Prime Minister Deuba pledged that the government, under the parliamentary tradition, would chalk out a concrete legal provision by hammering out a consensus among the political parties for granting citizenship to genuine Nepalis who are deprived of the same so far.

Prime Minister Deuba said that the government has decided to immediately implement the radical land reform programme by realising the new necessities and rationale of putting a ceiling on the land.

The Prime Minister observed that the government has proposed land reform package by accepting the spirit of the Article 26 (5) of the Constitution of the Kingdom, which states that the State would create the conditions that uplift the economic standard of the majority of people depending on agriculture, by increasing the productivity of the agriculture sector and to develop the agriculture as the industry by implementing the land reform programme.

"There is a need of fundamental change in our concept of development to bring the utterly impoverished citizens into the mainstream of national development," Premier Deuba noted.

He said that the government would adopt the policy to give priority to local landless downtrodden, ethnic and nationalities while implementing this programme in the country.

"Hundreds of thousands of landless and impoverished people living in utter pains and hardships would obtain housing and kitchen gardens from this programme," said Deuba.

"All Nepalese citizens will get rid of the life of landlessness after the implementation of this programme that aims overall social, political and economic upliftment of people in the country," he added.

He said the distribution would be carried out by remaining within the ceiling fixed by law.

"I am confident that the Parliament would accept this programme as a starting point in the direction of providing humanitarian requirements to the Nepalese people who are deprived of the basic needs such as food, housing, clothes, education and health," Premier Deuba said.

He also informed that the government would implement the package by keeping transparently the record of land distributed to the families of the landless in the past times and by rectifying the deficiencies of the past.

He said that the government would obtain land from two sources. First, the government would take back land, which was under the ownership of the State but has been illegally used by individuals. Likewise, the government would acquire land that has remained unused, those damaged by the river or those not cultivated due to the various reasons.

However, that land would not be sufficient for the proposed land distribution programme. "That is why, the government has registered the Bill on Land to amend the Bill on Land-2021 in the Parliament by realising that there are people who are holding excess land in an unproductive manner." This, he said, was against the concept of justifiable distribution of land.

For the successful implementation of the new provision of ceiling on the ownership of land and to make improvement in agriculture, the proposed Bill consist of the provision to set up a computer based integrated geo-information system, he said.

The bill also contains provision for people who land in more than one place should declare their total ownership in any one district.

Deuba said that it was the duty of the government to make optimal use of land to benefit the landless and to gradually reduce poverty by inspiring the concept of a broader national interest.

That is why, the government, under the spirit of the Constitution, would justifiably compensate those people who have more land than the proposed ceiling, he told the House of the Representatives.

He stressed that the land reform is a part of a total land management programme and not to put a ceiling on the land ownership only.

Talking about the recent government-Maoist talks, Prime Minister Deuba said that when the Maoists have already agreed to the government’s request not to disrupt the atmosphere of talks and to desist from forcibly collecting donations, using private and public vehicles by intimidation and frightening the business people. Saying that the government has taken the start of talks seriously, he asked the Maoist to stop all those activities.

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