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Bulldozers at Phewa Lake

Our old-school media and most of the folks who had encroached upon the government land at Phewa Lake were caught off-guard when the police and folks from the Pokhara municipality showed up early in the morning to demolish temporary structures a few days ago.

Most of Balen fans already got the clue when the PM called Pokhara's Mayor to inquire about the encroached land at Phewa Lake a few days before the bulldozers showed up that morning. The Supreme Court had ordered the demolition many years ago, and it had been many decades since previous governments turned a blind eye to the construction of thousands of illegal structures within the 65-meter buffer area.

Even the Pokhara municipality had not been that eager to rock the boat as many tourism entrepreneurs had invested millions of Rupees building these illegal structures. And our 'shady' byaparis lot are good at politics and threats against politicians and maybe that's why all those who have been Mayors of Pokhara did not want to fight these goondas. It took a phone call from the PM to finally implement the decision of the Supreme Court.

Then we had our 'slimy' media wallahs report without verifying, on Sudan Gurung's 20 ropanis of land there, and questioned how a social service worker got the dough to buy the land. Cadres of the old political parties were busy tweeting about where he got the money. I think these cadres never questioned their sadakchaap netas, who suddenly got rich after getting into power. Now, it seems that any car, house, or land the new ministers have are questioned as if these new ones amassed an illegal fortune even before they were elected.

We now know that Sudan Gurung and his friends had leased the property decades ago to establish an adventure sports facility in the area. I guess the project did not go as planned, and the Home Minister has already clarified his position.

Those who have been making money off these illegal structures are up in arms, calling for the death of Sudan and Balen as if they should have the right to operate their businesses on government land and that too in a restricted area. Yes, some of the land owners will have to be compensated and hope the government works things out but the majority of the public supports the government's decision to finally show the illegal squatters that this government is here to do the right thing to protect the Phewa Lake.

Our forester-turned hotel entrepreneur and motivational speaker, the grand old Karna Shakya updated his Facebook status after the demolition drive, stating that his hotel has not encroached on any government land and is not within the 65-meter buffer zone. I guess somebody needs to remind him that his swimming pool and parking lot do fall under the restricted area and those illegal structures were demolished and not the main hotel building, which is safe.

It is time our so-called big-shot byaparis stop playing the victim card if they have grabbed public land or evaded taxes by justifying their acts by saying that they employ thousands of workers and pay tons of taxes to the government. Those taxes do come from the VAT charged to the customers and the payroll taxes while most of the taxes on their profit is minimal as they work hard to get their accountants to under-report their real profits.

There are probably millions of ropanis of public land in this country being misused by our shady byaparis and in the coming years, we expect the Balen government to do the right thing and bring such properties under the government's domain instead of letting byaparis and politically affiliated folks grab public land, and make millions and billions of Rupees.

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