Madi Municipality to Launch 'Land Bank' Program

Chitwan. The Madi Municipality in Chitwan is preparing to operate a 'Land Bank' program to attract landless, impoverished, and young farmers towards commercial farming by utilizing idle arable land. The municipality has proposed a program to implement the land bank-related procedures from the upcoming fiscal year, as the trend of arable land remaining fallow due to increasing migration has grown. According to Jagat Prasad Bhusal, Chief Administrative Officer of the municipality, the land bank is not a physical office but a record-keeping system operated under the municipality, which will act as an intermediary between landowners and farmers interested in cultivation. "One group does not have land to farm or cannot afford expensive rent, while another group has land but lacks the manpower to farm," he said, "The land bank will connect these two parties under the municipality's supervision." According to him, there will be no direct transaction between landowners and farmers in this system. Since both parties will be connected only through the municipality, it is believed that future legal and practical complications will be minimized. He stated that the service is planned to be operational from the beginning of the new fiscal year. According to Suresh Sapkota, Head of the Agriculture Branch, out of approximately 8,500 hectares of arable land in Madi, only about 6,500 hectares are currently being cultivated. The remaining approximately 2,000 hectares of land are lying fallow. According to him, many landowners in Madi have migrated to Bharatpur and other areas, leaving arable land unused. The municipality plans to lease such land at a minimum fee and make it available to landless genuine farmers who wish to cultivate it. He said that the rent for normal arable land will be determined at an average of Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 per katthha or per bigha, while this rate may be even lower for barren and less fertile areas. To discourage the practice of leaving land fallow, the municipality is also preparing to change the tax system. According to the proposed procedures, land that is regularly cultivated will be taxed at Rs 40 per katthha, while arable land left fallow will be subject to a tax of Rs 160 per katthha. According to Chief Administrative Officer Bhusal, those who leave their land fallow without cultivation will have to pay four times more tax than farmers who cultivate. This is expected to encourage landowners to either cultivate the land themselves or make it available through the land bank. To make the program effective, the municipality has also intensified the campaign to register farmers. More than 4,200 farmers have been registered in wards 1 to 6 in the current fiscal year. Agriculture Branch Chief Sapkota said that the campaign will be conducted in the remaining wards next year to prepare a detailed database of farmers. The municipality has stated that the legal procedures and action plan required for operating the land bank are in the final stages. It is expected that vegetable, paddy, and other agricultural production will increase and local employment will be created once the program is implemented.