The government has imposed a ceiling on the land foreign embassies and diplomatic missions can purchase in the country.
The Cabinet meeting on January 17 decided to set a limit of 27 ropanis in the Kathmandu Valley after foreign missions started to arbitrarily purchase land and build structures.
Government Spokesperson and Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gokul Prasad Baskota during the weekly press conference to reveal the Cabinet decision said the government has set the ceiling as there was no decision on the criteria for purchase of land in Nepal as per the Vienna Convention.
"The government has set a limit of 12 ropanis for the embassies in the Kathmandu Valley, four ropanis for ambassadorial residence, eight ropanis for the consulate and three ropanis for the residence of consulate general," Minister Baskota said, "The government will take individual decisions for purchase of land outside the Valley on the basis of necessity."
The decision, however, will not apply on the land already purchased by foreign missions.
"Other nations have set a criteria on how much land can be procured by the foreign missions. We did not have such criteria. So some have purchased as much land as they can afford to," a source at Foreign Affairs Ministry said, "Such actions will be prevented once the ceiling is implemented."
According to sources at the Prime Minister's Office, the Embassy of Saudi Arabia is gearing up to purchase new land while the Embassy of Bangladesh is trying to sell its land.
Similarly, the Embassy of Qatar has also submitted application to purchase land. The World Bank and the World Food Program have also started the procedure to purchase land in the Kathmandu Valley.
The northern neighbor China had forwarded a proposal to set up a consulate-general in Pokhara. However, the procedure for the same has not moved ahead yet.
