Rinchen Sazhi

“Rinchen Sazhi”༼རིན་ཆེན་ས་གཞི༽(Precious Land)

is a  feature film and an advocacy documentary, which  portrays the value of our precious  land. It impart essential messages to the unemployed youths, school drop outs  and rural populace, especially about the URS/ LUC.

Plot

Leaning on the wall, Namgay day-dreams as a bureaucrat (Dasho) in an office, when his mother interrupts suddenly. 

Having degree qualification, he always wishes to have a white-collar job and well settled life. He hope to support his mother and repay the loans after getting into a government job. He even refused to marry a woman despite her marriage proposal. Choden, a daughter of a wealthy man wanted to marry Namgay. She wanted him to invest his knowledge and skills by farming on her father’s land which was against Namgay’s will.

Choden's father, Ap Penjor besides his huge land holding, still feels unsatisfied and plan to take over Aum Pemo's (Namgay's mother) land as they share common land boundary. Ap Penjor reasons out to have encroached his plot by aum Pemo's family, which he feels belong to him since his grandparents’ time.

His plan became ineffective when Namgay left Thimpu in search of his dream.

In Thimphu Namgay met his relative, Aue Dophu, who runs a small business at Chubachu. Dophu wanted Namgay to help him with his business untill he finds a job. He was disqualified from a job interview. He gets a lift on his way back. In a car were two women, Tshering and her friend whom he saw for the first time.

Tshering, who expect to marry a man named Sonam gets rejected by her parents. She works at National Land Commission. Her parents told her to marry any other man except Sonam.

She took home Namgay and introduced him to her parents.She already instructed him to be filthy and stingy. Most importantly she told him to act silly, nasty and cunning in front of her parents.  In a way she wanted them to see Sonam better than Namgay and accept him at the end. Meanwhile Namgay performed his role very well disappointing Tshering 's parents with all his acting. Her parents remained disgusted all the time but could not speak a word to Namgay. Similarly Tshering pretended to love Namgay unconditionally which made her parents wordless further. Sadly,their drama ended when Tshering  knew about Sonam’s affair with another woman.

Tshering then decided to relieve Namgay after their plan failed. Meanwhile her parents understood the drama and in fact a humble nature of Namgay. Before Namgay left her house, she shared him about the User Right System/Land Use System  and interest free loan provided by the government to encourage youths to start up their own business. Namgay refused to accept money she promised to pay him for his role.

He went back home to start up major farming on his own land and took other fallow lands on lease. He realized the limited job vacancies especially the ones like he dreamt of. The youths seeking job opportunities has outnumbered in an urban area such as Thimphu in the recent times. Namgay happily confessed his interest to start farming business to his mother and his best friend.

However Choden’s father repeatedly talked his dissatisfaction over the land dispute with Namgay’s mother. The discrepancy was cleared when a group of officials from National Land Commission accompanied by Tshering  visited  their village. Tshering  explained about the Total Station technique to demarcate the land boundaries and even the boundaries captured through satellite images. Choden’s father refuted further  and wanted to appeal to higher authorities. The survery report confirmed no boundary issues between Ap Penjor and Aum Pemo. In fact Ap Penjor  has encroached on the state land. This made him blameworthy at the end.

Eventually Namgay could led his major farming activities and even married a woman he loved, Tshering . 

NLCS perform and deals several other land matters based on Land Act, 2007.  

 
Some of the roles and services provided by NLCS are displayed in the film as follows: 

i. Land boundary demarcation are captured by satellite without error.

ii.  Lagthrams (Land Title certificate) contains copy of cadastral map.

iii. Land exchange and Satshab

iv.   Various survey methods such as chain survey and plane table methods are primitive ones where as Total station is most recent survey technique used.

v.  Agriculture and land on lease.

vi.  User Right System (URS) སྤྱོད་ཆོག་པའི་དབང་ཆ་ལམ་ལུགས : State land(State Reserved Forest Land)  shall be used by any individual for agricultural purposes upon seeking permission from the government(NLCS). However the land is not entitled for any type of transactions. It can be inherited to children  and shall be solely utilized for agricultural or other purposes even after inheritance.

vii. Construction on wetland (Chuzhing) is  prohibited as per Land Act of Bhutan, 2007.

viii.  Land disputes: According to Land Act of Bhutan 2007, section 56 states that the parties to a dispute may settle land  disputes amicably before taking any legal recourse. 57- In the event, amicable settlement is not possible, the matter shall be submitted before the court. According to the verdict, the Commission Secretariat shall carry out necessary action.

ix. Encroachment of state land:

x.  Detailed land records at NLCS (archive section) 

Reference

Land Act of Kingdom of Bhutan,2007