SIRAHA, MAY 18

Special Land Survey Office based in Siraha's Mirchaiya is being manned by office assistants, with the office chief drawing his salary from home while service-seekers are left at the receiving end.

There are three dozen technical staff working in the office. But when a correspondent reached the Special Land Survey Office in Mirchaiya, there were two office assistants and one driver.

When asked where the office chief was, the office assistants replied that he had gone to the field.

Out of a total of 11 rooms rented to run the office, only one room was open when this correspondent reached the site. Other rooms, such as administration room, store room and office chief's room looked as if they were closed for months.

When contacted and asked for an opportunity to meet, office chief Dilip Kumar Singh said he was out due to some special work and couldn't make it to meet the correspondent.

'I've come out on some important business and I can't meet you at the moment.

As I am in tension, I won't be able to meet you for two weeks and I can't come to office either,' the office chief was quoted as saying.

At present, work relating to land mapping is under way in Naraha Rural Municipality and Mirchaiya, Karjanha, Kalyanpur and Siraha municipalities under the office.

But when some service-seekers turn up at Mirchaiya-based office, there won't be any staff.

Sixty-one-year-old Baijanath Yadav had visited the office on Sunday to learn about the survey of his land. However, he had to return empty-handed as there was no staff at the office.

'I had first visited the Survey Office in Siraha, but as the office recommended me to go to the special survey office, I went there but found no one except office assistants,' he lamented.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 19, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.