SARBHANG

Despite its boom potential, bureaucratic redtape saps optimism

TIMBER IN ABEYANCE It looks like stockpiled construction material will have to survive another monsoon

25 December, 2009 - Pleasant weather, vast stretches of flat land, a huge army cantonment nearby, and a plan for an international airport. Gelephu has all the potential to become a major commercial centre for central Bhutan like Phuentsholing is for Thimphu.

The security situation that hampered Gelephu’s development has improved and the town is a now a safer place. Punatsangchhu I and II are also seen as a project that will act as a catalyst to Gelephu’s development.

But the town is not expanding.

In the interim, demarcated plots are overgrown with thickets since construction was suspended in 2000. Residents and landowners are eager to build houses. They know the cost of construction is escalating every year.

“The town has everything a place needs to grow and develop,” said a resident Sonam. “Many civil servants (both retired and working) have bought land here,” he said.

Like Sonam, retired soldier Sangay is among the many who bought land in Gelephu. Sangay invested his entire retirement benefit in purchasing land in the hope of constructing a house, rent it and earn an income. “But, with constructions frozen, I’ve finished the money I kept to build the house,” he said.

A civil servant, Singye, bought a 13-decimal plot in 2000 and bought timber to construct a house. Today, his timber is piled in front of his cousin’s house, while his land is overrun with bushes.

Except for a few buildings coming up in the town proper, there is no sign of any construction in the planned town. In 2006, a few landowners got the permit to construct but, even as they readied with the material, the municipal office stopped them again. “The municipal officials told me that they’d allow once the structural plan was ready,” said a retired civil servant. “Three years have passed and I don’t understand what’s taking them so long to develop a structural plan.”

Some landowners also complained that the municipality has allowed some to construct, while barring others, which according to them was unfair.

Meanwhile, the Gelephu municipal office is under pressure from people to allow construction. “Everyday a person comes and approaches us to let them construct,” said the municipal officer-in-charge, Chophel Dorji. “But, without any order from our ministry, the ministry of works and human settlement, and the land commission, we can’t allow them.”

Chopel Dorji said that the structural plan for the re-planning of the main town and local area plan (LAP) I, the area between the new taxi parking and Tali dratshang, was completed in early 2008. “Construction will be allowed if MoWHS and the land commission gives us the order to hand over the plots to owners,” said Chopel. “We know people are suffering but what can we do,” he said.

However, the municipality has allowed constructions to landowners in LAP I, who own more than one acre of land. “We allowed them because land owners with more than an acre will have excess land when we pool land,” Chopel Dorji said.

Gelephu municipal area is spread over an area of eight sq km. While LAP I and II have been identified, the municipality is still sto identify phase III and IV. LAP II is in the match factory area.

There is no clear sign when the ministry will give the go ahead to hand over the plots, and landowners will have to witness yet another monsoon pound the material they have gathered for construction.

By Tashi Dema in Kuensel

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