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When tourism-related activities boomed on the Manaslu trekking route, many people living in the area ventured into the hotel business while existing hotels expanded their capacity. 

But when the entire tourism sector witnessed an unprecedented slump due to the Covid-19 pandemic, entrepreneurs who invested in hotels by taking loans with interest rates as high as 36 percent per annum are now in distress as the hotels have been shut down for the most part of the year in the region. 

Ganesh Karki, a hotelier, complains that he is in a stage where he does not know if he should cry out of despair or laugh out of frustration. “After failing to provide the required services to tourists coming to my place, I decided to take a loan at whatever interest I had to pay to increase the capacity of the hotel,” Karki says. “But last year, there was a fall in tourist numbers due to dengue and this year, Covid has completely ruined business.” 

Karki informs that he took a 160,000 rupee loan with a 36 percent interest rate per annum from a local loan shark. “I have paid Rs 240,000 as interest alone and still, the principle has not been reduced by a single rupee,” Karki says, “My creditor does not stop demanding money even when he can see that my business has not been running at all.”

The creditor demands the interest amount every day and when Karki cannot pay on time, he doubles and then triples the interest, adding to the total due amount. Not only Karki, many other hoteliers in the Manaslu area have also fallen into the trap of compounding ‘meter interest.’ Ram Kumar Gurung, ward chairman of Chumanubri Rural Municipality-3, says that there are many complaints about non-payment of loans at 36 percent interest. 

“Initially, the tourists started coming here in droves and hoteliers ran out of places to keep them. So they took loans at exorbitant interest rates to increase their capacities,” Gurung explains, “Now that the business has been down for months, they have been unable to pay their dues and the creditors come to us with complaints.” The ward office has been mediating between the creditors and debtors by asking the debtors to pay at least the principle first and the accrued interest at a later date. 

Businesses in the area were forced to take personal loans at high-interest rates because the banks refused to invest in the tourism sector, says Karki.  “Had the banks invested in our business, as they do in the cities, we would have been in a better situation,” Karki says. Residents complain that the banks do not even operate properly in the area. Consumer committee members are forced to walk for seven days to get to Gorkha Bazaar, the district headquarters, at the end of the fiscal year because the banks in the rural municipality do not offer complete banking services. 

“Third World War is happening soon and all men aged 18-60 will be forcibly drafted.”

At the time of the 1981-82 census, rumors like these spread through the Syala village and villagers thus lied about their names with the enumerators. The names they gave belonged to local forests, rivers and everything they could see around, anything but their own names.

Then, in 1984, when officials from the Department of Survey came to the village, another rumor spread that the government would seize the land of people holding more land than necessary. 

Thus the villagers got only fractions of their land surveyed. “The villagers missed out on the survey and didn’t get papers for their land, the result of which we are facing now,” says Pembareta Lama, ward chair of Chumanubri Rural Municipality-2.

The women in the area got their citizenship certificates easily but the men, who falsified their names, faced great difficulties in getting theirs. “Large swathes of land were not surveyed. So now we have to live in settlements without land ownership certificates. No matter how much we try, we haven been unable to get the deeds for our property,” Lama adds. 

Residents of 115 households of Syala village, Chumanubri-2, live in settlements without ownership certificates. Hundreds of foreign tourists used to come to this popular tourist destination where big hotels, schools and monasteries have been built. But the local people don’t have land ownership certificates.

Around 131 households in the upper settlement of Samagaun in Chumanubri Rural Municipality-1 also don’t have deeds to prove they own the land. Since the area is a gateway to Manaslu and Larke Pass, most houses here run hotels to cater to the regular flow of both domestic and international tourists. Consequently, millions have been spent on building hotels, lodges and other infrastructures in the area.

Bir Bahadur Lama, ward chair of Chumbanuri-1, informs that none of the owners of houses built over 40 years ago in the rural municipality have such certificates. Residents of another settlement Namrung also don’t have certificates. “Thirty-eight households here do not have lal purja,” informs Lakpadundup Lama, a local.

The government has spent millions of rupees to bring drinking water to each household in these settlements. The government has also invested heavily in schools and health posts. But it has not given land ownership certificates to any of the residents yet. 

Four years ago, the government, under its plans to solve the problems of the squatters and landless people, made the locals sign forms for land ownership certificates. “We have also recently been made to fill another form,” says Lama. “Hopefully, we will now soon get our certificates.”