Landowners with extra plots to be charged more taxes

THE government proposes to make property owners holding more than a specified number of residential plots pay extra taxes. According to a preliminary draft of the National Land Policy prepared by the Ministry of Land Reforms and Management, people holding more land than the ceiling will have to pay more to the government. The idea is to discourage the tendency of holding land without making productive use of it, said Gopal Giri, under secretary at the ministry. The proposed policy, which the ministry has prepared as an integrated policy of the state, has provisioned that the tax rate will be based on productivity, usage and area. As per another stipulation in the policy, only farmers will be allowed to buy land categorized as agricultural land. “The move is aimed at discouraging people other than farmers from occupying farmland,” said Giri. Moreover, the policy says that people not growing crops on land marked as farmland will not get government facilities and subsidies meant for agriculture. The government also plans to develop unusable land it owns such as land vulnerable to land erosion, forest areas without trees and river banks by leasing them out as per its priorities. “Such land will be given on lease at minimum rates for agricultural production,” said Giri. “If the land is given for commercial purposes, priority will be given to squatters and landless people to start their businesses.” Currently, there is no arrangement for giving land on lease, but much government land has been given to private individuals to put to productive use. “The proposed policy has provisioned giving government land on lease for a certain period,” said Giri. Meanwhile, if a person gets land from the government under its land reform programme, it will be registered in the names of all the family members as joint owners. Giri said that such a policy had been proposed to prevent the head of the household from misusing such land and forcing the family to being squatters again. The proposed policy has stated that the state will have the first right over land irrespective of its private or public status. It has proposed that the state can acquire private land for the public good. It has also talked about properly managing land in the border regions, adjusting the threshold of land ownership as per changes in time and scientific ways and increasing farmers’ access to agricultural land. The proposed policy has also said that land will be permitted to be used as per its classification. The government’s land use policy has categorized land into six classes— agricultural, residential, commercial, industrial, public use area and forest area. The land use policy is part of the broader National Land Policy. Moreover, a uniform standard will be set for evaluating land across the country, and a single entity will be established to do so. Currently, different government offices and private firms conduct valuation of land as per their own standards.