Nepal
Three days after Rabi Lamichhane’s appointment as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Kathmandu Metropolitan City has writtern to the ministry, urging it to help clear illegal structures along the Bagmati banks at Thapathali in the heart of Kathmandu.
KMC’s move came exactly a month after the riverside dwellers of Thapathali violently resisted the metropolis’ effort to pull down their small homes without alternative arrangements.
On November 28, KMC sent security personnel and a bulldozer to clear nearly 150 huts that, officials said, were illegally built. But the squatters protested and retaliated with bricks and stones, leaving 18 municipal police personnel injured.
KMC lodged police complaint against several individuals involved in attacking its police personnel, but no case was filed at the court. Refuging to vacate the banks, the squatters took to the streets and demanded Mayor Balen Shah's resignation.
The letter undersigned by KMC’s Chief Administrative Officer Basanta Adhikari, dated December 28, notes that KMC has recently started a demolition drive to clear illegal encroachment of public spaces “for which a campaign is necessary ''.
As part of that drive, it adds, it recently attempted to clear illegal structures built along the Bagmati banks in Thapathali area, trying to help the High-Powered Committee for the Integrated Development of the Bagmati Civilisation.
The committee is a separate government body working to clean up the valley's rivers and beautify their banks.
“But we have not been successful in clearing the Thapathali structures,” it says, adding: “Since there’s a plan to beautify the river banks, we’d appreciate your help and coordination in removing the unauthorised structures especially in Thapathali area.”
KMC Mayor Balen Shah has been receiving cheers and jeers from city-dwellers after he started clearing encroachment of public spaces, including pavements, parking lots and river banks.
It’s unclear if Shah is trying to nudge Rabi Lamichhane to clear Thapathali slum. But KMC’s letter coincides with the appointment of Lamichhane as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister.
Bigger problem
Thapathali is not the only squatter settlement in Kathmandu valley. Here, several river banks and public spaces have been providing refuge to an estimated 10,000-plus people belonging to nearly 3,000 families, according to a 2011 research by KC Kiran published in Nepal Journal.
The study put the total number of such settlements around the valley at 40.
In October 2021, the government announced that it would initiate the process of distributing land to all squatters and unsystematic settlers nationwide – numbering hundreds of thousands –from January 2022.
Earlier this year, on May 29, while presenting the budget for the fiscal year 2022/23 Finance Minister Janardan Sharma announced that the government had plans to distribute land ownership certificates to 500,000 families around the country.
Vice President and Spokesperson of the National Land Commission, Nahendra Khadka says that the government has started the process to give land to the landless Dalits, landless squatters, and unorganized settlers of all 77 districts.
So far the commission has received 1.3 million appeals from an estimated 5.2 million squatters living in 301 municipalities.
Also Read: Despite floods, Bagmati squatters don't want to leave their riverside homes
