The government owns a total of 3,454,603 bighas of public land across the country and it is a matter of concern that more and more plots are being encroached or being illegally transferred to individual ownership. Lack of state monitoring, documentation and surveillance has resulted in illegal land grabbing with the nefarious nexus between land mafia and corrupt government officials. This tendency has given a pinprick to the government to come forward and curb the ill dealings going on in different parts of the country. As land prices have soared due to artificial pricing and syndication of land agents, under the table dealings have increased for land grab and land encroachment.

The government has formed a high level task force to assess and update the situation of the government, public and guthi (trust) land. The focus was to take stock of illegal encroachment and ownership transfer. Though overall investigation is continuing, the government study team found that around 4,300 bighas of land was encroached across the country. Government and public land come under encroachment in higher rates along the highways or near the urban centres as encroachers are attracted there due to trade, business and livelihood prospects. Many encroachers pose themselves as landless and homeless people, but the reality can be different. Many self-declared landless squatters are fake, as they own home and land elsewhere.

Speaking at a weekly Gorkhapatra Dialogue on Sunday, Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation Padma Kumari Aryal said that it is often challenging to distinguish between genuine and fabricated landless squatters, but the government is working seriously in this direction. When the identification and documentation works are done, real poor people will be given identity cards through which they can get state benefits and welfare they deserve. This is a positive move the government has taken which should be implemented with all boldness. This calls for political willpower and the government’s uncompromising stance because fake poor and fake landless squatters have borne out of impractical political pledges and protection. Minister Aryal has said that fake squatters occupying high value urban land will have to be evicted.

During the dialogue, Minister Aryal brought to light a recent case in which 19 bighas of government land was registered in the name of an individual at Barhathawa of Sarlahi district. The dealing was annulled through government intervention. The land registration office in-charge involved in the invalidation of the illegal dealing had to be given security assurances to do his job. It is an irony that the officer who executed the illegal dealing did not feel a threat from any quarter. The land registration office chief who signed the forged registration was retiring on age grounds within days. The government study has found that around 139 bighas of guthi land was also encroached. Many unaware people who bought the guthi land have fallen victims in the hands of land mafia. Ending such anomalies in the land sector calls for sweeping legal reforms and policy change.