Nepali Economics
By Prajwal Shrestha
In Nepal, squatters have become a permanent problem. For decades, the government has been introducing different programmes to end squatters from the country but every year, the number of squatters is increasing instead of its elimination as this is a problem created by our politics. The squatters are affiliated with different political parties. They are receiving political protection and occupying valuable government land in urban areas. They are even rich than many farmers shedding sweat in their farmland in remote areas of the country.
Those revolutionary communist leaders have given assurance for providing them land and house. Therefore, even those people having their personal land are encouraged for occupying the government land under the protection of different political parties.
The then prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli constituted the commission for the squatters and also district-level committees by appointing his own men nationwide. The ultimate plan was for occupying the government land and distributing it to the party workers. This decision has been scrapped by the new government. However, the new government is also intended to constitute another commission, a land management commission, with the same objective of recruiting those party workers associated with the present alliance government. This act is not for elimination the squatters but distributing the government land to the party workers.
The fact is that the problem of the squatters is not going to be resolved by distributing them the government land. First of all, the government should identify the real squatters and the government should ensure jobs for them based on their capacity instead of distributing the government land free of cost or at nominal cost. For creating jobs, the government should develop a partnership with the private sector investors. Along with providing a job for them, the government land illegally occupied by those in the name of being squatters should have to be returned.
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