KATHMANDU: The roots of the Gen Z movement were embedded in the government’s ban on social media. After the government instructed the closure of 26 unregistered social media platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), young people considered it an attack against the freedom of expression. This movement was led by Gen Z. They organized themselves through social media. The leaderless movement forced political parties to abandon their old ways.

Suffering, again, upon the citizens

Those involved in the Gen Z movement, which spread across the country starting from the capital, Kathmandu, committed arson at major administrative centers such as Singha Durbar, the Supreme Court, and various offices, including the Land Revenue, Survey, and Ward Offices. They burned documents of treaties and agreements with various countries kept in Singha Durbar, land registration certificates of individuals kept at the Land Revenue Offices, maps at the Survey Offices, citizenship records at the District Administration Offices, records of birth, death, and migration at the Ward Offices, and the long-standing judgments and evidence case files kept in the courts.

The fire did not just burn pages of paper; it also burned the dreams, hard work, and trust of millions of other Nepali citizens. Now, landowners will have to undergo great suffering to prepare the land registration certificates that were earned through decades of hard work. The list of documents required to be submitted in the notices issued by the Land Revenue Offices to reinstate the certificates has already given a premonition of that suffering.

It is difficult to find the case files that were finalized after years of frequenting the courts in the same condition. With the loss of non-digitized documents, citizens now need more than a small rush to gather the documents they have left and collect other written documents. Some burned old maps and judgments are in a state where they cannot be recovered at all. Some digitized documents that were backed up on servers kept in the offices were also destroyed by the fire.

For example, the Land Revenue Office, Kalanki, issued a notice asking for the submission of a long list of necessary documents to reinstate new certificates. According to the notice, to reinstate a new certificate, one needs to submit various types of documents, including a copy of the individual’s citizenship certificate, the three-generation recommendation (with photo) from the local level, the landowner’s original land ownership certificate, the source of land acquisition (certified copy of the written decision), plot register, fieldbook, map, land revenue receipt of the current fiscal year, the consent of the freezing institution in the case of frozen land, on-site survey as necessary, a 35-day public notice, the consent of the Guthi Sansthan in the case of Guthi land, and other evidence. Some people have the original certificate but no land map. Where will they get the map from after the Survey Office burned down? Some may have even lost their land ownership certificate. Where will they get it from now? This pain appears to take the form of a great crisis.

The columnist spoke with Khimananda Acharya, the spokesperson for the Department of Land Management and Archive, about the state of the land revenue records. According to Acharya, the Kaski, Bharatpur, and Kallanki Land Revenue Offices were completely destroyed in the Gen Z movement. Documents were burned in 21 Land Revenue Offices, including Kailali, Ghorahi, Banke, Morang, Dadeldhura, Butwal, Tulsipur, Chitwan, Siraha, Rangeli (Morang), Belbari (Morang), and Chanautey (Chitwan), among others. Some pending files in Kallanki survived because they were stored elsewhere, but the records of the remaining offices were destroyed. Digitized documents are safe on the servers, but since not all certificates were digitized, recovery is difficult.

On the other hand, the Janakpur High Court has issued a notice stating that regular hearings will not be held immediately due to damage to the Supreme Court’s software. Even a month after the movement ended, the Supreme Court has not been able to restart its website. The Supreme Court’s data center was targeted during the movement. Not only paper files, but also digitized records backed up on the server kept in the office were also destroyed by the fire.

According to Khimananda Acharya, the spokesperson for the Department of Land Management and Archive, the Kaski, Bharatpur, and Kallanki Land Revenue Offices were completely destroyed in the Gen Z movement. Documents were burned in 21 Land Revenue Offices

The Kathmandu District Court showed an example that if the files had been digitized on time, the backup could have been saved even if the paper files were burned. The files of the cooperative case involving Rabi Lamichhane, the refugee case involving leaders of the Nepali Congress, CPN (UML), and CPN (Maoist Centre), and the gold smuggling case were selectively burned. The court has not made any public information available about the backup of other cases, but the entire file of the refugee case should be safe in a digital version. Because the court had digitized all the files of this case. Records from other locations where data was on a cloud server have also survived. Storing data on servers in multiple locations allows one to save data elsewhere if one is damaged. This is the power of the digitized system.

The government has implemented the Land Records Information Management System (LRIMS) to make land administration time-appropriate. This is a centralized system operated via the internet, which provides land administration information securely, reliably, and instantly. This system is currently implemented in all Land Revenue Offices nationwide. It stores the landowner’s biometric details and notifies transactions via mobile SMS, which discourages fraudulent transactions. If this system had been fully backed up on a cloud server, the data would have been saved even when the Gen Z protestors destroyed the land revenue records. The Land Revenue Office would not have had to issue a notice causing trouble for the landowners.

Digitization in Nepal started in the decade of 2000. However, progress could not advance as expected due to the lack of technical infrastructure and a shortage of skilled manpower.

Domestic and international experience

E-Estonia refers to the digital society of Estonia, and they have made 99 percent of their government services online. In 2017, a cloud server saved data during a fire in Tallinn, Estonia. Similarly, India’s ‘Digilocker’ provides online registration to 100 million users. Residents there do not carry documents like the blue book, license, and Aadhaar card. They create an account in DigiLocker and keep all documents safe. The U.S. Public Access To Court Electronic Records (PACER) continued court services even during the California fire in 2018. Spain’s ‘E-Justice’ did not allow services to stop during the Barcelona flood in 2019. In Nepal, the 2015 earthquake destroyed records, but digitized records could be recovered. These experiences teach us that a fully digitized system and cloud backup protect assets in emergencies. Storing data on servers in multiple locations allows one to save data elsewhere if one is damaged.

According to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority, 80 percent of the population is connected to the internet. Therefore, it is possible to accelerate the ‘Digital Nepal Framework’ and create ‘E-Records’ and ‘GIS Maps,’ among other things to start digitization. Systems like Geo-Information can be expanded to the cloud. Digitization provides security, speed, transparency, and inclusivity. Storing data in the cloud can protect it from natural disasters as well as from fire or arson.

We are currently reaping the benefits of making government work ‘paperless’ from the Office of the Company Registrar. Public and private companies there submit annual details and complete all work online. Officials at the Office of the Company Registrar digitally sign the documents and upload them online. Service recipients themselves print them and submit them where necessary. The authenticity provided by the Office of the Company Registrar is determined by the digital signature and QR code. However, we are now experiencing the pain of not being digital, as services from the Land Revenue, Court, and District Administration Offices have been disrupted even one month after the destruction of September 9.

According to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority, 80 percent of the population is connected to the internet. Therefore, it is possible to accelerate the ‘Digital Nepal Framework’ and create ‘E-Records’ and ‘GIS Maps,’ among other things to start digitization.

The government attempted to create the Nagarik App to provide all government services digitally from one place. It aimed to provide citizenship verification, passport details, voter ID, local-level services, and other government information on a single platform. The government’s intention was good to enable citizens to receive services from home without having to visit offices under the vision of a Digital Nepal. This app has connected more than 1.5 million users by 2025. It is not that the government did not want to do it. The problem is in the implementation. This app is a small step towards Digital Nepal, but a bigger investment is required for a large change.

The opportunity brought by fire

The damage to public property is an inexcusable crime. The government will certainly investigate and punish those involved in that crime. Criminals should not get impunity. If impunity increases, anarchy will raise its head. Right now, we are in unbearable pain, and this pain has brought an opportunity to turn it into strength. The lesson is to learn from such opportunities. The fire of the Gen Z movement turned our records into ashes, and this pain has also brought the opportunity for a Digital Nepal. A digitized system saves paper documents, and a cloud server keeps data secure. Therefore, the work of digitizing documents and storing data in a secure data center must now begin. If we say we will do it slowly, we cannot say that we will not face a fate like that of September 9.