Mayor Balen Shah has claimed that more than 208 ropanis of public land worth 23 billion rupees have been returned since he took over as the mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City. He informed that the metropolis's goal is to remove encroachment on 1,859 ropanis and 14 annas of land worth about 200 billion rupees.

The Local Government Operation Act, 2074 BS has given the local government full authority to protect, manage and recover public land and property. Mayor Shah has said that he has been working with the policy of 'increasing people's access to public property' since the first day of his election. In this context, he said that he is conducting a campaign to end the trend of encroaching, occupying and grabbing public land.

Mayor Shah made this public by posting a post on social media on Thursday.

Mayor Balen's status:

Since coming to Kathmandu Metropolitan City, we have returned more than 208 ropanis of public land worth 23 billion rupees. Our goal is to remove encroachment of 1,859 ropanis and 14 aanas of land worth about 200 million rupees.

The Local Government Operation Act, 2074 BS has given the local government full authority to protect, manage and recover public land and property. We have been working with the policy of “increasing people’s access to public property” since the first day of our election. In this process, we have been conducting a campaign to end the trend of encroaching, occupying, and grabbing public land.

Under that campaign, so far, more than 208 ropanis of public land worth more than Rs. 23 billion have been brought back to public use. We are rapidly developing the returned lands as open parks, sports fields, skateboard parks, playgrounds, green areas, and public use sites with the aim of preventing them from being reoccupied. In the process, some encroached river corridors have also been removed.

In order to further prioritize the protection of public land, an implementation committee has been formed with the aim of bringing 1,859 ropanis and 14 aanas of encroached land back to public use, taking the report prepared by the commission formed under the chairmanship of former Secretary Ram Bahadur Rawal as the policy basis.

The committee will start its work from tomorrow. We sincerely request all citizens, stakeholders, communities and organizations within the metropolis for their full support and cooperation to make this campaign a success. With the success of this campaign, we will be able to bring back public and government land worth more than 200 billion rupees from the land mafia. We know that this work will not be possible with the efforts of the metropolis alone. However, we believe that it will definitely be possible with the support and voice of true citizens.

We have provided the details of the encroached public and government land identified by the Rawal Commission, including the names, addresses, plot numbers and encroached areas. This report has clearly shown that the misuse of valuable government and public assets in urban areas has been done by the so-called big policy makers in society. Against this, we have included the work of recovery with priority in the policies, programs and budgets and programs of the current fiscal year.