Exiled Citizens Land distributed

Over 5,000 people received lands owned by exiled citizens

March 14th, 2012 by Editor

Altogether 5,088 people from various other districts have been resettled in farms and lands, which were previously owned by Southern Bhutanese in exile, between 1997 and 2008.

District map of Bhutan

Of this, Samtse suffered the largest resettlement as the National Land Commission (NLC) offered lands to 2,194 individuals, offering five acres of land for each resettled.

Likewise, 1,585 people were offered lands in Sarpang followed by 859 persons in Tshirang. Dagana received the least number of 450 resettlers, according to NLC.

The resettlers are mostly Sarchops from the East. However, the Commission has issued lands to landless citizens from other parts of the country as well.

Meanwhile, the Commission last week notified all resettlers that if they failed to occupy or cultivate the allotted land it would not be registered.

It has also warned of nullifying the registration of those who have stopped cultivating the farms offered to them.

Unverified reports have claimed that new settlers in the South have been threatened of physical actions from some underground outfits for agreeing to cultivate the farms and lands abandoned by exiled Bhutanese.

 

............................

Resettlers notified to occupy or cultivate land

March 10, 2012

Failing which land registration will be cancelled

National Land Commission (NLC) has notified resettlers that if they failed to occupy or cultivate the allotted land it will not be registered.

Section 215 of Land Act 2007 says that a landowner does not occupy or use kidu or rehabilitation land within three years from the date of allotment, it shall be deemed that he or she has the intention to abandon his or her rights on the land.

Many resettlers have been found leaving their land unoccupied or fallow in violation of the provision of the act.

NLC says that the same conditions will be applied to rehabilitation land registered during the ongoing National Cadastral Resurvey.

The dzongkhag administrations have been asked to monitor land use closely and take action according to sections 216, 217 and 218 of the land act.

Sections 216, 217 and 218 of the act say that the local authorities shall be responsible for monitoring and reporting to the land commission cases of non-occupancy and non-use of land. When such cases are known, the local authorities should serve a written notice to landowners concerned.

After 180 days of serving the notice, if the landowners do not occupy or use their land, the commission, upon recommendation from the local authorities, will submit a report to the Office of Gyalpoi Zimpon. If the ownership of the land is annulled, the land will be taken over as government land or government reserved forest land.

The programme director for rehabilitation of the NLC secretariat, Ugyen Tenzin, said many land registration cases in the dzongkhags are pending because they couldn’t be completed between 1997 and 2008 when resettlement programme was undertaken.

The notification, he said, was meant to provide the local authorities a guideline on registering kidu and resettlement land. “These are the terms and conditions based on which they will carry out registration of pending cases,” he said.

There have been cases of land allotments being cancelled because people failed to occupy or cultivate land.

A total of 5,088 people have been resettled in Samtse, Sarpang, Dagana and Tsirang dzongkhags between 1997 and 2008. Each resettler was given five acres of land. Samtse has 2,194 resettlers followed by Sarpang with 1,585, Tsirang with 859 and Dagana, 450.

The land commission doesn’t have detailed dzongkhag-wise statistics on non-occupancy and non-use of resettlement land.

By Gyembo Namgyal