PRABHAKAR GHIMIRE The existing Act makes it mandatory for every landholder to disclose details of land under their ownership. The MoLRM´s came up with the amendment bill after the government failed to allocate budget for collecting landholding details across the country as proposed by the ministry. “It is not possible to collect land details across the country given the limited human resources and financial resources at the ministry. That is why we are preparing for the amendment to the Land Reform Act to pave the way for collection of details of only the people holding land more than the government-set ceiling,” Madhav Regmi, joint secretary at the MoLRM, told Republica on Monday. Regmi, who is also the spokesperson of the MoLRM, said the ministry has already demanded Rs 660 million from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to collect details of about six million landholders across the country if the amendment bill is not endorsed in the winter session. A committee led by MoLRM Secretary Chhabiraj Pant had worked out the estimated budget for administrative cost, cost for data processing and salary of staffers. Earlier, the ministry had demanded Rs 660 million from the Finance Ministry to collect details of landholding across the country. However, the plan has faced a setback as the government did not allocate the budget in the current fiscal year. The MoLRM three months ago had started implementation of the Land Reform Act (Fifth Amendment)-2001 -- that bars people from owning land in excess of the ceiling -- by issuing a 35-day notification. The MoLRM had even proposed to distribute land in excess of the ceiling to underprivileged and landless people. Responding to a writ petition seeking immediate implementation of the Land Reforms Act, the Supreme Court a few months ago had ordered the government to implement the law enacted in 2001 that envisages bringing landmark changes in the country´s land reforms. In response to the apex court ruling, the MoLRM had issued a 35-day notice urging people across the country to disclose their landholding details at the Land Reform Office or the Land Revenue Office in their respective districts. As per the notice, people having landholding below the allowed limits could furnish details to concerned village development committees of municipalities. As per the Land Reforms Act (Fifth Amendment), a person can own 20 ropanis of land in Kathmandu Valley, 10 bighas in Tarai districts and 70 ropanis in hilly districts. Likewise, a person can own five ropanis in Kathmandu Valley and hilly districts and one bigha in Tarai districts for homestead purpose. | ||
Showing posts with label legislation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legislation. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Land Reform Act amendment on cards
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
NEPAL: Relatives of the missing struggle with legal void, social taboos
BARDIA, 29 December 2010 (IRIN) - The economic and emotional toll of seeking answers continues for families of more than 1,000 missing during Nepal’s decade-long civil conflict which ended four years ago. While legal answers are proving elusive, widow-headed households are turning to NGOs for economic help.
Eight years ago when Belrani Tharu’s husband applied for a job with the army, local commanders believed he was an enemy spy and arrested him - at least, this is what she was told by a man who said he had been her husband’s prison cellmate.
Belrani, 35, lives in a small village in Bardia, a district in southern Nepal which in the mid-1990s turned from bucolic idyll into a conflict zone.
“We searched everywhere for him. I’ve been waiting for my husband; I believe one day he will come,” she said.
Suspected of being enemy collaborators, thousands of civilians were detained, interrogated and killed in Nepal’s 1996-2006 conflict between government troops and Maoist insurgents.
Four years after the signing of a peace treaty, the fate of at least 1,370 individuals remains unknown, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Rights groups assume most of the unaccounted for are dead. However, the status of the “missing” is officially unresolved until their bodily remains are produced or conclusive testimony concerning their death is provided.
Families and rights groups are demanding answers - and legal recourse - but pursuing accountability is fraught with difficulty.
Under Nepalese law, crimes such as kidnapping and murder during the civil war cannot be applied to state soldiers. Initial legislation to address disappearances granted amnesty to perpetrators.
Legal impasse
Earlier in 2010, activists successfully lobbied for a bill with provisions for criminal prosecutions, but efforts to expedite it have been frustrated by the same political deadlock that has left Nepal with only a caretaker prime minister and no ruling party.
But even if new legislation is passed, questions will remain about enforcement.
“Unless there is political will, the legislation will mean nothing,” said Mandira Sharma, executive director of Advocacy Forum, a Kathmandu-based NGO providing pro-bono legal representation to families of missing persons in civilian courts.
Economic help
In 2008, the Maoist-led government gave the equivalent of US$1,385 in temporary compensation to families with missing relatives. Though this is roughly three times per capita gross domestic product, it is still insufficient for the long-term problems widows face.
More than two-thirds of disappeared persons were married men.
Like Belrani, most wives of disappeared persons come from isolated, rural communities, where fighting was fiercest.
In these areas, tradition dictates that a woman should care for her family instead of earning income. As a result, it is difficult - even taboo - for a widowed woman to support herself and her children.
Since 2007 the ICRC has assisted 600 of the most economically vulnerable families of the disappeared through assets which include livestock and agricultural materials. Belrani received a cow through this programme, and she sells the milk to supplement her meagre income.
The ICRC is emphatic in branding the assistance “interim relief”. “Reparations would [wrongly] suggest the situation has been resolved, and of course it hasn’t,” said Jamila Hammami, with the ICRC in Kathmandu.
Hindu customs, which are often strictly enforced in these communities, prohibit widows from remarrying until they receive official confirmation of their husband’s death.
In the absence of such confirmation, by Nepalese law, a wife is unable to assume control of family property until 12 years after her suspected-to-be-dead-husband was last sighted.
Through confidential interviews with both the Nepal Army and Maoist fighters, the ICRC is attempting to obtain information for families about burial sites which could contain the remains of their abducted relatives.
bb/pt/cb
Eight years ago when Belrani Tharu’s husband applied for a job with the army, local commanders believed he was an enemy spy and arrested him - at least, this is what she was told by a man who said he had been her husband’s prison cellmate.
Belrani, 35, lives in a small village in Bardia, a district in southern Nepal which in the mid-1990s turned from bucolic idyll into a conflict zone.
“We searched everywhere for him. I’ve been waiting for my husband; I believe one day he will come,” she said.
Suspected of being enemy collaborators, thousands of civilians were detained, interrogated and killed in Nepal’s 1996-2006 conflict between government troops and Maoist insurgents.
Four years after the signing of a peace treaty, the fate of at least 1,370 individuals remains unknown, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Rights groups assume most of the unaccounted for are dead. However, the status of the “missing” is officially unresolved until their bodily remains are produced or conclusive testimony concerning their death is provided.
Families and rights groups are demanding answers - and legal recourse - but pursuing accountability is fraught with difficulty.
Under Nepalese law, crimes such as kidnapping and murder during the civil war cannot be applied to state soldiers. Initial legislation to address disappearances granted amnesty to perpetrators.
Legal impasse
Earlier in 2010, activists successfully lobbied for a bill with provisions for criminal prosecutions, but efforts to expedite it have been frustrated by the same political deadlock that has left Nepal with only a caretaker prime minister and no ruling party.
But even if new legislation is passed, questions will remain about enforcement.
“Unless there is political will, the legislation will mean nothing,” said Mandira Sharma, executive director of Advocacy Forum, a Kathmandu-based NGO providing pro-bono legal representation to families of missing persons in civilian courts.
Economic help
In 2008, the Maoist-led government gave the equivalent of US$1,385 in temporary compensation to families with missing relatives. Though this is roughly three times per capita gross domestic product, it is still insufficient for the long-term problems widows face.
More than two-thirds of disappeared persons were married men.
Like Belrani, most wives of disappeared persons come from isolated, rural communities, where fighting was fiercest.
In these areas, tradition dictates that a woman should care for her family instead of earning income. As a result, it is difficult - even taboo - for a widowed woman to support herself and her children.
Since 2007 the ICRC has assisted 600 of the most economically vulnerable families of the disappeared through assets which include livestock and agricultural materials. Belrani received a cow through this programme, and she sells the milk to supplement her meagre income.
The ICRC is emphatic in branding the assistance “interim relief”. “Reparations would [wrongly] suggest the situation has been resolved, and of course it hasn’t,” said Jamila Hammami, with the ICRC in Kathmandu.
Hindu customs, which are often strictly enforced in these communities, prohibit widows from remarrying until they receive official confirmation of their husband’s death.
In the absence of such confirmation, by Nepalese law, a wife is unable to assume control of family property until 12 years after her suspected-to-be-dead-husband was last sighted.
Through confidential interviews with both the Nepal Army and Maoist fighters, the ICRC is attempting to obtain information for families about burial sites which could contain the remains of their abducted relatives.
bb/pt/cb
Theme (s): Conflict, Economy, Gender Issues, Human Rights,
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
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