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The high-level commission is all set to identify the genuine landless squatters through the distribution of verification forms in 25 districts, most of them in the Tarai belt, from February 23 to March 23.[break]
According to Bhakti Prasad Lamichhane, chairman of the commission, people claiming to be landless and squatting on public land in the Tarai districts adjacent to the East-West Highway as well as Udaypur, Sindhuli, Kaski and Surkhet will be requested to fill out the forms in the first phase of the verification drive.
"In the second phase of the drive, we will verify the landless squatters in the remaining 50 districts including Kathmandu," said Lamichhane.
Lamichhane says that the commission will provide land ownership certificates to those identified as landless squatters. "If we need to relocate genuine landless squatters, such as those living along the Bagmati corridor, we will recommend their rehabilitation to the government," he said.
The commission´s decision comes at a time when a drive launched by the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction (DoUDBC) to verify genuine landless squatters living along the Bagmati corridor has failed. In the DoUDB drive, hardly 1,200 families had filled out verification forms claiming to be genuinely landless.
However, Padam Devkota, coordinator of the Samyukta Rashtriya Sukumbasi Morcha, an action committee formed by six different organizations of landless squatters, says even those 1,200 families are mostly not from the Bagmati corridor.
"Most of them do not live on the Bagmati riverbank," Devkota said. "They are not landless."
The government had recently announced it is to provide three months´ house rent to those identified as landless squatters. However, the Morcha has rejected that proposal as well. "We want alternative arrangements," Devkota said. "Nothing else matters to us."
Meanwhile, a group of landless squatters led by Dipak Rai, a member of the commission, met Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal to brief him about the problems facing landless squatters. "Dahal told us that he would press to ensure the rights of landless squatters in the new constitution," commission Chairman Lamichhane said.
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