By Our Correspondent

Hetauda, Mar. 18: With the initiative to provide land ownership certificate to landless dalits, landless squatters and unorganised settlers by the government, five local levels of Makwanpur district have started data collection process.

According to an agreement inked with the Landless Squatters’ Problem Resolution Commission, Manahari, Bagmati, Makwanpurgadhi and Bakaya Rural Municipality of Makwanpur and Hetauda sub-metropolitan municipality are collecting the data.

According to the Manahari Gaunpalika, more than 8,000 people have applied for land survey and land ownership certificate in Manahari Rural Municipality alone.Rajendra Chaulagain, chief of the land-related problem-solving section of Rural Municipality, said 8,198 people in all nine wards have applied for land ownership. Of them, 131 families are landless dalits, 557 landless squatters and 7,492 families are unorganized settlers.He informed that the online registration and measurement process would start immediately after verifying the applications received through each ward.

The Rural Municipality has already appointed three surveyors (Amin) for the distribution of land ownership certificates by forwarding survey works and it has also received two surveyors from the Landless Squatters’ Problem Resolution Commission, said Chaulagain.

The Rural Municipality had appointed 40 data collectors for data collection in all the nine wards. Most parts of Manahari villages fall in the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park and Parsa National Park. Public land has been encroached and utilised in this area for a long time.

According to the Rural Municipality, only 994 bighas of public and fallow land have been recovered in Manahari Rural Municipality while embanking the river bank. Discussions will be held on establishing a land bank and distributing the said land to squatters and dalit landless.