His Majesty The King yesterday granted land kidu to 9,628 beneficiaries of Samtse dzongkhag. A total of 1,261.027 acres of land was granted as kidu to the people of the 15 gewogs.

Samtse is the 17th dzongkhag where land kidu has been granted as part of the nationwide land reform following the National Cadastral Resurvey Programme carried out by the National Land Commission. To date, His Majesty has granted 133,287.765 acres of land as kidu to 123,265 beneficiaries nationwide.

His Majesty Commanded the National Land Commission to carry out a comprehensive land survey in 2007. The survey, which made use of the most advanced technology available to ensure that records would be authoritative, helped clarify discrepancies and longstanding land issues.

His Majesty personally resolved these land issues, by granting land kidu.

A majority of the land granted has been “excess land”, where families have been using land beyond what is reflected as their own holdings as per land records under the new survey. Such discrepancies arose due to a number of issues, including less accurate means of measurements in the past.

The land kidu is aimed at resolving all such long-standing issues, as well as ensuring that those people who continue to depend on land for their living, have adequate holdings to do so.

Beneficiaries were also granted exemption of fees amounting to over Nu 2,212.644 million in these 17 dzongkhags. These fees were accrued as a result of the use of state land, which now belong to the recipients following the kidu.

Resolving land issues is an on-going project covering the entire country. Land kidu has been granted in phases to ensure that recipients who were unable to have their land holdings verified the first time around for any reason, would still be eligible for kidu at a later time.

His Majesty is on a Royal Tour of the southern dzongkhags.

Staff Reporter