SANKHUWASABHA: The locals of a dozen of VDCs in Sankhuwasabha are barred from buying and selling of land for the last seven years.

The problem occurred after all the field books and the maps maintained by the Land Revenue and Survey Office were destroyed in a Maoist attack in Chainpur on 27 April, 2002.

According to Manka Kumar Karna, head of the survey office, out of 15 VDCs that the Office dealt with, the 54 maps and the field books of 12 VDCs had

been destroyed in the Maoist attack. During the attack, the Maoists had burnt down all the documents of the offices.

Karna said the certified copies of those documents collected by the office from the locals of Kharang, Mamling, Aankhibhuin, Siddhakali, Bawa, Nundhaki, Tamaphok, and Jaljala were also missing.

Even as the office has made duplicate copies of the documents collected from the locals in the area, the sale and purchase of 165,850 ropanis of land has been obstructed from 2002 due to the complete destruction of documents related to the land.

According to Birendra KC, former chairman of Baneshwor VDC, the locals are living like refugees in their own lands with out possessing valid legal documents of their land. “Nor they can take loans and collateral security from banks,” he added.

Rajendra Phokharel, head of Land Revenue Office, said they had to carry out a fresh survey of lands whose documents are missing. In the first place, purchase and sale of lands is facilitated by dividing a plot of land into different segments, which needs maps and land documents. But the absence of documents has stymied the plotting of lands.

According to locals, the sale and purchase of nearly 50,000 plots of land in the area came to standstill after the documents were destroyed in the Maoist attack. Kawan Sen Rai, district secretary of CPN-UML, said that due to the lack of necessary documents, the land owners were deprived of the facilities that they had to get from the state.

Rajendra Sigdel, acting CDO in the district, said they were proposing the Department of Survey to carry out the survey of the VDCs whose land documents had been destroyed. Gyan Bahadur Karki, an NC leader, said thousands are daily cramming on Land Revenue offices.