The residents of Kohalpur Municipality-11, Shantinagar, have been protesting in front of the Kohalpur Municipality Office since February 21 demanding registration of the migration and permanently settling the landless citizens.
The people of Kohalpur ward no.11 have alleged local level for not holding a meeting concerning the fundamental rights and not addressing their problems even after 18 days of a sit-in protest.
According to Jiban Thapa Magar, chairman of the unorganized Landless and Squatters Committee, Banke, the local body had filed a writ petition in the appellate court of Nepalgunj on July 3, 2008. The appellate court in Nepalgunj said that they were compelled to stage a sit-in after the local body disobeyed the order to register personal incidents.
Thapa said that the residents of Kohalpur Municipality-11 Shantinagar have been protesting for 18 days for the implementation of their fundamental rights including migration, birth registration and death registration.
Pushpa Chaudhary of Kohalpur Municipality-11 Shantinagar said that the demand was not heard even after seven rounds of talks with the locals. He said that he started the protest as he was trying to raise the issue of urban development.
Mayor of Kohalpur Municipality Lut Bahadur Rawat said that the land was registered in the name of Kohalpur Municipal Development Committee. He has alleged that he did not comply with repeated requests to vacate the land.
He said that a commission has been formed to solve the problem of landless and public land dwellers and even though it was said that the forms would be registered in the commission, the residents of Kohalpur Municipality-11 Shantinagar have refused to pay the house tax, migration, marriage registration, birth registration etc. He called for consensus and said that a solution would be reached after discussions.