Now our village has been scaled and measured

Premlata Bhata
“One of our friend’s wife was very sick. He didn’t have any money and went to a bank to get a loan but he could not as he didn’t have the land ownership certificate for the land. Therefore his wife passed away. The village block should be measured and such issues should be raised”.
Premlata Bhatta, who is a central member of National Village Block Land Right Forum, looks sad as she tells the story of how land certificates came too late to her village. Like many other poor villagers in southern Nepal Premlata and her family reside in a village which is registered as one single block, hence they do not have individual ownership.
But lately the future of such villages has started to look a little brighter. Due to
intense village mobilisation and national level advocacy with CA-members and politicians KIDC has managed to get land survey started in ten villages in Kapilvastu: ”Our organisation Gautam Buddha requested that our land was measured and now the village is scaled and separated nicely”, Mina Kewat, from Tilaurakot, Kapilvastu, explains when we visited her village fields in early spring 2009, Gautam Buddha is one of ten smaller NGOs that together constitute KIDC.
“Now that we are getting land certificates we can take loans and carry out activities. That makes us very happy”, Jaya Ram Kewat a senior villager from the same village says, standing in his neatly weeded chili field. “And we don’t quarrel so much now”, an elderly lady adds.