Landowners deprived of compensation

Damak, November 25:

Locals here are deprived of their share of compensation for providing land for the construction

of a road after the Maoists burnt copies of their land ownership certificates. Many villagers of Sijuwa, who were members of the Small Farmers Development Project under the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), had kept their land owner certificates at the ADB where the Maoists attacked and destroyed over 60 such certificates, Krishna Prasad Acharya, one of the victims of Sijuwa, said. Now the villagers do not have documents to prove their ownership of the land they provided for construction of the Urlabari-Bardanga road section under the Road Network Development Project (RNDP), to claim for compensation. Officials at the RNDP in Damak said they have not provided compensation to 30 locals because they failed to furnish documents proving their ownership of the land and those who had submitted all documents have received compensation. Acharya said the Maoists had returned land ownership certificates of some locals and they were able to receive the compensation.