February 25, 2025
TRONGSA – The Viewpoint Resort in Trongsa, once a star-rated luxury property, has been left in a state of disrepair, with no clear plans for redevelopment, even after the long legal dispute ended three years ago.
Built at a staggering cost of nearly Nu 300 million, the three-star resort has been abandoned for years, a casualty of a high-profile land corruption case that led to its seizure by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in 2015.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that returned the resort to the government, its future remains uncertain. Citing financial constraints, the government has no plans to acquire the property, leaving its fate in limbo.
The resort has now become a ghostly ruin. The ceilings have collapsed, doors and windows are shattered, and most of the corrugated iron roofing sheets have been stripped away—either stolen or scattered across the grounds.
Inside, the rooms are filled with debris, with stray cattle taking shelter in the abandoned spaces. The grounds are overgrown with weeds, and the access road leading from the highway is barely passable.
“There is no security guard at the hotel site, and the roofing sheets, furniture, and other amenities have been stolen,” said a local. “The remaining sheets will also be lost if nothing is done. We cannot go to the site alone as the structure has a ghostly, haunted appearance.”
The resort was built on 4.703 acres of land that were illegally acquired through forged documents, a scheme masterminded by Karma Tshetim Dolma, the wife of former Trongsa Dzongda Lhab Dorji. Following an extensive investigation, the Supreme Court convicted them and four others in 2022, sentencing them to prison terms ranging from 18 months to six years.
The Bank of Bhutan (BoB), which financed the resort with a Nu 132.687 million loan—including a Nu 46.796 million service loan—still holds a mortgage on the property. This means that, legally, the property remains securitised to the BoB until the loan is repaid.
As of the Supreme Court’s ruling in April 2022, the outstanding loan had ballooned to Nu 280 million.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, the ACC conveyed the judgment to the previous Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa government to explore options for acquiring the resort. The then cabinet directed the Ministry of Finance to initiate the acquisition in the interest of all parties.
An ACC official said that the case no longer falls within its functional responsibility. “Our responsibility is to enforce the judgment, and we have written to the government to inquire if it was interested in purchasing the resort, which has agreed to take it over,” said the official.
While the Commission issued a freeze notice against any land transactions after the preliminary investigation, the officials said that the hotel operation was never frozen. “We have even written to them regarding the operation as stated in the court judgment,” added the official.
The thram for the impugned land was deregistered from the individual’s name after the SC declared the mortgaged land as state land and ordered the land and resort to be returned to the government.
Government acquisition?
The government was to either take over the structure at a valued cost with compensation or require Karma Tshetim Dolma to dismantle it at her expense. While a joint team valued the infrastructure at Nu 99.814 million, Karma Tshetim Dolma claimed to have invested about Nu 300 million in the resort, her only asset.
However, the present government, with no specific plans for the future use of the property, has no intention of acquiring the resort due to current financial constraints.
The Ministry of Finance conducted several meetings with the BoB, where the bank was asked to take over the mortgaged property as part of their loan recovery measures.
As a way forward, the ministry, in consultation with the National Land Commission, has assured the BoB that a lease for the land on which the property stands would be facilitated, allowing interested clients to revive the business, according to the ministry.
“As a securitised asset for the loans provided from their portfolio, the BoB had the primary responsibility to protect and safeguard the assets,” the ministry stated, adding that the bank is in the best position to address the investment claims, as with any property subject to terms or agreements.
The finance ministry explained that recovering money from the state exchequer is not in line with loan recovery norms and that it would not be fair for the state to bear the losses when financial institutions falter. “The ministry takes it as its responsibility to safeguard public funds and ensure that no party feels entitled to claim any loss from the state exchequer.”
The BoB’s CEO could not be reached, and the bank officials did not respond to Kuensel’s inquiry when the paper went to print yesterday.
Land scam background
The land dispute goes back to 1997, when the government relocated the College of Language and Culture Studies to Taktse, Trongsa. The move affected 37 households, with some landowners receiving substitute land in other regions, including Gelephu.
The land dispute began when an illegal land transfer occurred, involving land acquired by the education ministry for the college development and a local resident, Kinzang Dorji—who was granted substitute land in Gelephu—to Karma Tshetim Dolma.
The land scam involved multiple fake deeds for government and private lands, which Karma Tshetim Dolma and Lhab Dorji, with the help of local officials, used to illegally acquire the land on which the resort was built.
The case emerged during the 2010-11 National Cadastral Resurvey when Gyalmo, an illiterate woman, discovered that her late mother’s land had been illegally transferred to Karma Tshetim Dolma. Gyalmo was misled into signing a fake sale deed, uncovering a major land scam involving forged documents and fraudulent transactions.
The ACC registered the case with the Trongsa court on February 15, 2017, after it had been frozen for investigation in 2015.