26 Chait, Kathmandu. Recently, the government has been arresting people who work as middlemen in the customs office and who collect unnecessary fees from the general public.

In that sequence, the operators of the land service operation center, i.e. the people who do the accounting at the cargo office, have reached the police control.

It is clear that the accountants are playing the role of intermediaries in Malpot and other government offices. Police have been intensifying their work since the accusations and complaints that they have taken licenses from the government agency, causing unnecessary suffering to the common people, charging additional fees, and charging expenses fees to the office staff have started to increase.

Not allowing direct contact between employees and customers in the name of facilitators and charging additional fees is not new. After the Genji movement, the government, which received about two-thirds of its mandate, has been cracking down on people who work as middlemen in the campaign to make public service delivery more efficient.

In this context, the Patan unit of the Nepal Accounting and Legal Practitioners Association has protested. However, because of those middlemen, it is not possible to go directly to the Malport office to get the services of the Malport office.

In order to buy/sell/assess real estate, the accountant’s office around the land office should be run. If unaccounted cargo enters the office, the staff will return it saying that it will not work.

A system called ‘Dolma’ is being used in the work related to the shipping office. It does not matter that the general public does not have access to the said system. A very complicated process has been made for common people. Therefore, it is mandatory to take the help of an accountant.

They have access to the system. It is through this system that the work related to the goods is started. The online system is available in the post offices across the country.

Although it is said that common people can work in that software, the employees of Malpot Office say that it is not possible for customers to work using that system themselves. The accounting permission is given by the shipping office. Only after that, if the shipping is entered, the work can be done.

Kumar Ingnam, Minister of Land Management, Sakari and Poverty Alleviation of the electoral government that was formed after the Genji movement, had publicly called the employees bribery and said that there was a problem in Malpot that there would be no work without bribery.

‘If tamsuk is done in the ward office, the land will be passed based on that, even if the employees only do the work of the common people, many changes will come in the state,’ Minister Ingnam said publicly, ‘now where do the property officers and employees directly ask for money? Even after paying the revenue, I have paid Rs 5,000 to the land service center myself in the past.’

Even though the work could not be done due to the arson during the Genji movement, the minister took ‘action’ after it was found that the employees of Chabahil Malpot were collecting Rs. 24 lakhs per month from the accountants.

Minister Ingnam’s intention is clear from his statement that government work is in the net of corruption. After understanding how the state structure works, he declared himself a failed minister and left saying that he could not do anything.

An employee of the Kathmandu Manmaiju Malpot office said that it is not easy for the customer to proceed with the process of buying and selling real estate.

“Even if there is an arrangement for the client to proceed with the work without using the accountant, the client cannot, so the accountant seems to be mandatory,” he said.

Even in Dillibazar Malpot office, the situation is that everyone has taken the help of lakhs of people since the service users cannot work on their own.

The accounting permission will be given by the relevant shipping office and for that there is Bhusewa Center Directory 2075. Permits are issued by the Department of Land Management and Records according to the same guidelines.

For that, there is a provision that individuals or organizations can operate land service centers. In the case of individuals, the license fee is Rs 3,000 and in the case of organizations it costs Rs 5,000.

Similarly, for this service, individuals have to keep a bond of 50,000 and institutions 200,000 when operating the service. Such a license must be renewed annually, even when renewing, there is a provision to pay 3,000 rupees if the service operator is an individual and 5,000 rupees if it is an organization.

This is also the GIS access fee. It is clear that this provision of the directive has allowed the middleman to enter the real estate business by charging a fee. This profession, which was earlier called accountant, has now been named Bhusewa Kendra.

Port offices are partially digitalized. However, for that, the direct contact between the service recipient and the service provider is usually through the land service center. Former secretary Gopinath Mainali says that the government’s role in land transactions is only to be a witness.

“In terms of buying and selling land, the land surveyor will certify it as a witness, but after the land surveyor has verified it, the surveyor will demarcate the land,” said Mainali, “There is a bit more confusion because the land surveyor is also present in the land survey, because of that, the Nepal government has started an online system for buying and selling without having a notary. Since 2075, there is no need to go with a notary.”

The public access module informs directly that this land is through the ward office. At the time of bag making, it is necessary to reach the napi to measure. Mainali said that against the decision of the then cabinet to start the online system, the scribes went to the Supreme Court and brought an interim order.

“Despite taking an interim order, the Nepal government finally won the case,” he said, “but the Malpot administration did not accept it even now. I myself ran away from the issues that former minister Kumar Ingnam said.”

He says that there is a lot of truth about the fact that there is a large nexus of employees and middlemen in places where land is traded more. It is the experience of Mainali that even the past prime ministers were not able to throw that nexus.

He said that the current situation has come about because the employees were unable to implement it because the Prime Minister did not want to implement it.

‘For the effective implementation of that system, the staff in the shipping sector had to be changed, for that I had requested 200 new branch officers, 50 deputy secretaries and 2 joint secretaries,’ he said, ‘what the Prime Minister did not want, even that was not addressed with the demand for new people in my initiative.’

Mainali said that there are few good employees in some institutions including property administration, land administration, Guthi. ‘Now they are still regretting that they have to do the Halsavik,’ Mainali said, ‘If they want to do the Halsavik, the land is the same, the employees of Napi also started hurting the service users in the name of the Halsavik,’ said Mainali, ‘It should be started from the day the cabinet is formed, if it is delayed for a few days, it will be captured by the net in the Malpot.’

He says that it has not been completed since 2008. He also suggested that the current measurements should be done automatically.

Mainali says that if a middleman is introduced in the name of facilitator in the cargo area, both the state and the service recipient will be cheated. Therefore, he emphasized that there should be no need for facilitators in the customs office to bring revenue to the state and to provide easy and accessible services to the customers.