Land Use Policy to be started along East-West Highway

LAND on either side of the East- West Highway will have to be reregistered according to the classification made by the Land Use Policy from the next fiscal year. The policy has divided the country’s land into seven categories— agricultural, forest, residential, commercial, public, industrial and others. The government first plans to implement the policy, which was introduced last year, in the 500 VDCs along the highway, said the Ministry of Land Reform and Management. “We have sent the programme to the Finance Ministry to be included in the next budget,” said Krishna Raj BC, joint secretary at the ministry. “Based on the budget, we will decide the number of VDCs where the policy will be enforced.” The government plans to apply the scheme in town-oriented areas along the highway in the first phase. “As farmland around such areas are more vulnerable to being converted into residential and commercial purposes, we want to discourage such tendencies first,” said BC. “After the land has been categorized as per the land use policy, they cannot be changed into another category which will prevent rising use of agricultural land for other purposes.” The policy seeks to ensure that fertile land is used for farming only and bar trading in land marked for agriculture. It also aims to control haphazard industrial and commercial activities which will be concentrated in certain areas in a managed and scientific way. According to government statistics, the country has a lot of unused land that can be exploited. Only 28 percent of the total land has been used for farming, while another 40 percent is covered by forests and vegetation. The government plans to categorize the land in a VDC in Nawalparasi as a pilot project. It is putting the finishing touches to a regulation to impl-ement the policy. Gopal Giri, under secretary at the ministry, said the highway had been chosen to start the scheme as there was a tendency of constructing houses and carrying out commercial activities on the roadsides. He added a strip of land along the highway would be registered as government property since the people are not allowed to build anything up to a certain distance from the road. “With regard to other land, it will be registered as per necessity and use,” said Giri. He added farmland that had already been converted into housing use would be marked as residential. The policy has aimed to categorize land based on geography, capacity and appropriateness to ensure maximum productivity. As for land that cannot be categorized as per its appropriateness, it will be classified based on the existing use. The policy has divided land into seven categories— agricultural, forest, residential, commercial, public, industrial and others