Although land was acquired for highway construction, it has been found that the work of deducting the cost from the survey and land revenue office's estimates has been neglected.
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It has been 6 decades since the construction of the East-West Mahendra Highway, which is considered the economic, social and transportation backbone of the country. A large part of the national pride road section, which carries thousands of vehicles and millions of passengers daily, has still not come under government ownership.
It has been found that the highway section from Dhanusha to Bara in Madhesh Province is still under the name of various individuals. The fact that the lifeline road of the country, which is almost 60 years old, is owned by individuals on paper is causing administrative sluggishness. In order to avoid future legal crises, the concerned office has even written to the Survey Department, saying that there is no option but to immediately bring this section from Dhanusha to Bara under government ownership by the government, making it a national priority.
This negligence has come to the surface due to the lack of necessary coordination between the Road Division, Land Reforms and Survey Office and the concerned landowners. This could lead to a major crisis of road expansion, compensation disputes and legal complications in the near future, stakeholders have warned. In the past, even though land was acquired during highway construction, it has been found that the work of cost deduction (transfer of land in the name of the road) from the survey and land revenue office has been neglected.
Kranti Kumar Gupta, head of the survey office Chandranigahpur, said that the problem could not be solved because the road division office was late in sending the letter. 'The cost cannot be deducted until the road division sends the letter. They do not send the letter at all. This is the work of the road,' he said, 'Even now, 30 to 40 percent of the national highway is in the name of the landowner. If this cannot be brought into the name of the Government of Nepal immediately, there may be a big problem in the future.'
The survey office says that if the road office wants, there will be no need to come in person and the cost can be deducted if the letter is sent. According to the surveyor, until the land is depreciated, the person can sell it elsewhere. They can bargain and cheat by showing the red papers. Even though most landowners know that their land has been taken over the road, they have not shown interest in depreciating it as their names still appear in the land revenue register.
The failure to come under the government's name could hinder road expansion in the future, and while plans are underway to expand the East-West Highway to four lanes or more, there is a risk that landowners could legally seek an injunction from the court, claiming it is their land. The work to make the East-West Highway four-lane is now in full swing. Work has begun from Bardibas to the Sarlahi-Rautahat border area.
The tender for the Bagmati to Pathlaiya section has been floated. Work on the Kamala-Dhalkebar section in the east has also begun. Roshan Das, head of the Kamala Dhalkebar, Pathlaiya Road Project, Bardibas, said that he had sent a letter to the Survey Department to verify government land on the Bardibas to Pathlaiya section of the road through drones, but it was later denied. ‘The department did not give permission to use drones. There are no roads on paper in many places,’ he said, ‘We have written and sent it to the relevant survey offices for record-keeping. There has been no update so far.’
A few days ago, a delegation from Kamala Dhalkebar, a local from Sarlahi, had gone to the Bardibas office of the Pathlaiya Road Project. They had warned that they would obstruct the road construction work without clearing the land for which they were paying the dues, said the project head, Das. In some cases, there is a possibility of taking a loan by depositing the land title deeds of the land that has already been on the road in the bank or some people may get cheated by buying and selling such land unknowingly, according to the survey office heads. When the title deed remains in the name of an individual, there is an increased tendency to build permanent or temporary structures on the road, which the government is legally unable to demolish.
Former MP Dev Prasad Timalsina said that it is extreme negligence on the part of the state machinery to have the title deed of a road that has been used for decades in the pockets of individuals. ‘If someone files a case in court while expanding the highway tomorrow, the state’s billion-dollar project could be stopped. The landowner should be immediately delisted,’ he said. ‘I was surprised to hear that the national highway is not on the map. This is not a common thing.’
Officials of the Road Division and Survey Office also admit that this problem exists. However, they say that it will be difficult to solve this problem unless both the agencies jointly deploy a special team to conduct field surveys and prepare the plans. This problem is more visible in Dhanusha, Mahottari, Sarlahi, Rautahat and Bara divisions.
They say that a special task force should be formed to assess the land value of the Mahendra Highway in coordination with the concerned offices. In some places, it seems that the survey office alone cannot solve this problem. The most controversy has been seen in the Bardibas market area. Mahesh Kumar Singh, head of the Bardibas Survey Office, said that there is a lot of controversy over the issue of assessing the land value. ‘A letter of assessment has also come from the road project,’ he said, ‘It is not possible for the surveyor alone to solve this problem.’
The survey and road office does not have accurate records of how much land is in the name of individuals in the area from Bardibas to Bara in Mahottari. According to the Sarlahi Survey Office, 30 percent of the land value in this area is yet to be assessed. Currently, the work of upgrading the highway to four lanes according to the standards of the Asian Highway is being carried out rapidly.
Office heads say that since the highway land is owned by individuals, there could be a legal and financial crisis in the lane expansion work. In the past, public land was acquired during the construction of highways according to the Land Acquisition Act. The Survey Office alleges that the Road Division offices have not shown interest in deducting the land from the land revenue and survey office's register and field book in the name of the road even though the land was used.
Assistant Spokesperson of the Road Department, Shubhajan Dahal, said that both the survey and road departments should work together to bring the highway land from the name of individuals to the name of the government. 'There are problems in some places. Until the land is deducted, individuals will continue to sell it to others,' he said. 'Even if 25/25 meters are maintained on both sides of the road according to the Road Act, it is necessary to deduct the land from the name of individuals.'
A project to make the Mahendra Highway a modern four-lane road is underway. The primary condition for this upgrade is to remove the structures within the road boundary and clear the land. However, it is seen that there will be problems since the land is in the name of an individual. The highway record should be cut off in the name of the government in coordination with the Road Division, landowner and survey office, but the title deed is still in the name of the individual. There is a provision in the survey that the record should be cut off only by separating this many meters from the road as per the rules. The landowner is not found to have done so when he has to leave the highway and pass it. When the land is passed leaving 25 meters, the remaining land will remain in the name of the previous landowner, which will cause trouble later, so the buyers pay government revenue and pass it along with the highway. Most of the people here have been passing the land along with the East-West Highway in their name.
Arun Kumar Lalkarna, Chief of the Road Division Office, Rautahat, said that there are problems in many places on the highway from east to west. "If the landowner himself comes to do the logging, we have written it in the survey and sent it. I don't think there will be many problems now," he said, "It is one type in the field and another type is visible on the map. Since it is a very old highway, problems have started appearing later. We will solve it soon." He said that the road is preparing to retrieve the land title deeds of the highways up to Banke Jungle in the east and Dhansar in the west. The road has asked to retrieve the land title deeds when the previous office was in Hetauda, saying that they were kept there.
