Land: Fourteen landowners in Pemagatshel are given five weeks to produce lagthram or other relevant documents to prove that the land belongs to them.

The dzongkhag will otherwise declare them state land as per the Land Act of Bhutan 2007 and ask the landowners to vacate the land.

But if the documents like lagthram, land tax receipts, land transaction details or any documents that prove that the land was allotted to them by the dzongkhag, the Dzongkhag Tshogdu (DT), dzongkhag land acquisition and land allotment committee will table it for further discussion.

The matter became an issue in the recent DT when the dzongkhag found that people living on land below the Pemagatshel Middle Secondary School had no record of lagthram or documents of land acquisition.

Dzongkhag land record officer (LRO) Wangdi said the matter was discussed several times but the issue has been dragging on. He said that landowners have been paying land tax but until 2010. The Land Act of Bhutan 2007 says that if the land is without lagthram it will be considered as a state land.

“Although each landowners justified that they have letters and documents that the land was allotted to them, they failed to provide the documents,” Wangdi said. The matter was also referred to land commission.

“Only one landowner has land allotment form. The rest of the land were sold from person to other and nobody has the allotment form,” Wangdi said. “None of the owners have a single letter mentioning that the dzongkhag had allotted the land.”

The landowners, who are living mostly outside Pemagatshel, claimed that the plot was allotted to them by the dzongkhag some 30 years ago. They did not get lagthram because they thought the dzongkhag would process the documents.

“We’re trying to collect documents to show the land actually belong to us and not the dzongkhags,” said Sonam Choden.

Almost all the landowners have already constructed private houses on the land.

Yangchen C Rinzin,  Pemagatshel 

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