Government Begins Verification Process Following Demolition of Squatter Settlements to Identify Genuine and Fake Residents

After bulldozing ‘squatter settlements’ built on public land in the Kathmandu Valley, the government has initiated a process to distinguish between genuine and fake squatters. Officials have stated that the identification work is based on existing records once displaced individuals register as landless and move into temporary shelters provided by the government. Ganesh Prasad Bhatt, spokesperson for the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, confirmed that an initial process to manage squatters within the Kathmandu Valley is underway.

An agency under the Ministry of Urban Development, citing a previous study, reported that approximately 3,500 families are landless squatters and reside in unplanned settlements. “We are conducting verification. Since not all details can be retrieved from citizenship numbers, we are attempting verification based on three generations of documentation,” Deputy Secretary Bhatt explained. For this purpose, the government has assigned responsibility to the Department of Land Management and Records. According to the department, by Tuesday, around 500 out of 3,500 families have been identified as not being genuine landless squatters.

Girish Kumar Jha, Director of the Geoinformatics Division at the Land Department, stated, “Based on registered land under individuals’ names or those who have sold land after 2019, approximately 490 fake squatters have been identified.” This number is expected to rise. Officials note that the data used for verification is outdated, so not all displaced persons may be eligible or currently registered. Information from the Land Problem Solving Commission corroborates this. According to Sant Kumar Karki, Vice-Chairman and spokesperson of the Commission, 5,856 people have applied for land across the three districts of the capital.