Kathmandu, July 21:

Minister for Land Reforms and Management Prabhu Narayan Chaudhary today told the Parliamentary Natural Resources Management Committee that existing laws bar the state from providing land.

According to Chaudhary, provisions in the Forest Act 2017 BS and the Land Reforms Act 2021 BS do not permit land distribution.

Only through political decisions can the land be distributed to the freed Kamaiyas, he said. “Through political decisions, 50 per cent of the problems dogging the freed Kamaiyas can be solved,” he added. The minister was asked by the Committee to brief it as to why the freed Kamaiyas have been launching a movement and what strategy the government is adopting to address the matter.

Chaudhary added that it was wrong on the part of the erstwhile government to give land to the freed Kamaiyas from the Land Bank, on the condition that they pay certain amount for the land within a given time frame. Terming it another bad decision, he wondered: “How will the freed Kamaiyas pay the amount?”

Taking part in the meeting, leaders of the freed Kamaiyas Dilli Chaudhary and Pashupati Chaudhary warned the Kamaiyas would stage a protest programme if the government did not solve their problems by Sunday. “We will bring life to a halt in the country by blocking the highways,” Chaudhary said. He warned that 35,000 freed Kamaiyas would resort to deforestation and encroachment of public land if the government did not listen to their pleas.

Addressing the House session, chairman of the committee Praksha Jwala directed the government not to suppress the peaceful movement launched by the freed Kamaiyas. Jwala demanded that the freed Kamaiyas’ right to land be respected. “The government declared the Kamaiyas free. Time has come to provide them land.”