EXPERIENCE AND PROSPECT OF LAND-READJUSTMENT IN
NEPAL
Er. Singh, Ramesh Prasad
Deputy Director General
Department of Urban Development and Building Construction
&
Er. Gorkhaly , Girija Prasad
Member Secretary
Singha Durbar Secretariat Reconstruction Committee
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the use of Land Readjustment (LR) Projects in Nepal
to share with authorities of Thailand and other Asian countries.
It highlights the histroy, the methodolgy applied , benefits, the practical
difficulties with key success factors of LR projects in Nepal. It would
present the tool’s effectiveness and identifies the lessons to be learned
from Nepal’s experience. Specific lessons include the following : the land
ownership disputes from LR scheme preparation and approval process;
institutional set up and develop infrastructure early to acquire landowner
support for the project.
Background:
Land Readjustment (popularly called Land-Pooling in Nepal) has been
practiced in small pockets through-out the country. In Nepal, Land
Readjustment is popularly termed as Land Pooling, because land readjustment is done by pooling the land into one parcel beforeplanned
sub-division.
Land pooling program, a participatory land development approach pools
several odd sized, un-serviced parcels of land and to plan each and every
plot so that they are well serviced with provision of roads, drainage, open
space and sub-divides into planned neighbourhood with plots in such a
way that each one is well serviced with roads,drainge,open space and
other necessary infrastructure services.
The cost of infrastructure development is met by selling service plots that
is contributed by the landowners. This is the very good example of public
private partnership.
History:
Four decades back (1976 A.D.) in Pokhara, a western Nepalese town,
Land-pooling was adopted to build a road. There was no legal provision to
do the land readjustment, neither the planners has any knowledge of land
adjustment. At the political level the need of the road was realised and
engineer there work-out a plan to build it without giving compensation for
the land, but not negatively affecting any land owners. Rather equitably
distributing the benefit due to the road construction. Along the alignment,
45 meters (about 150 feet) was demarked in either side and then made
three strips of 30 meters (about 100 feet ). Central strip was allocated for
road and remaining strips on either sides of the road is cut into the
rectangular plots and returned to the original land owners at the rate of
50% of their original land area. Remianing about 17% land was used for
cross roads, public buildings and sell to pay for construction of the road
and some other facilities.
After this experience of the Land Readjustment (that time engineers
did not even know the term Land-pooling or land-readjustment) was
implemented in Kathmandu to develop a residential area in the then urban
periphery. With this experience, Nepal then added some provision of Land
Pooling in the Town Development Act, 1988.
In late 1980s, JICA supported Housing and Urban Development
Department with two volunteers and short term trainings for a dozen of
engineers in Land Readjustment. This help to implement the Landreadjustment more systematically in an expanded way. In 2003 December,
Department published a manual1 in Nepalese language with edited English
language version, which helped it implement in the districts without
centre's day to day support.
Legal Provisions:
At present the Town Development Act, 1988 (Kathmandu Valley
Development Act, 1988 for Kathmandu Valley,) is the only legal tool.
Based on the Act, and practices being followed, The Land Pooling
Manuals, 2003 was published by the Department of Urban Development
and Building Construction. It sequentially explains methods and even
includes the standard notices, forms to be used, model policy to return
land and valuation and calculation methods. Now, in Nepal, it is being
adopted as the virtual legal document, without any question of legality.
Land (Survey) Act 1962 has provision of survey of private, government or
common land and Land (Survey) bye law 2001 , also has provision on the
land pooling. The users committee and project management committee
will provide guidance for running land pooling the project.
1
Surya Bhakta Sangachhen, G.P.Gorkhaly and Naokazu Miyazaki (2003) Land Pooling Manual; Department of Urban
Development and Building Construction, Ministry of Physical Planning and Works.
Land related Act 1964, has provision of minimum ceiling of land, that a
parcel could be subdivided i.e. in case of urban land, minimum ceiling is 80
sq m in hill and mountain areas and 85 sq. m in Terai areas. There are also
maximum ceiling of land which is not problem in land pooling projects.
Building standard also fixed the 6 m minimum size of frontage of the
parcel. The standards for infrastructures of urban development are being
worked out.
Institutional Arrangements:
The government of Nepal constitutes town development committee or
project with appropriate legislation to carry out the land pooling or urban
development programme. The Kathmandu Valley Development Authority
(KVDA), Town Development Committee in municipal or town outside
Kathmandu Valley are involved in developing town plans and carry out
land pooling programmes.The users committees of land owners and
project implementation committee of the stakeholders like government
agencies and representatives of land owners are also constituted to each
project to mobilize land owners and coordinate stakeholders.
The town development committee generally composed under the member
secretary of district town planner and chaired by member secretary of
KVDA in Kathmandu Valley or independent expert nominated by the
government. Study is generally carried out by the district urban planning
and building construction office.
The institutional landscape of the implementation of project is illustrated
in figure below. The figure illustrates that all land pooling projects will be
approved by Ministry of Urban Development. Implementer can be either
Municipality or the Town Development Committee but Project
Management Committee has overall responsibility of the implementation
with direct coordination with landowners and their user committee. Town
Development Act explains that the LP projects can be initiated when more
than half landowners agreed that for.
As being practiced now, L.P. is implemented by;
Ministry of Physical Planning
and works
Town Development Committee
Municipality
Project Management sub-committees
Land Owners Committee
Project Implementation Unit
Method:
The land readjustment/pooling projects are implemented at the
proximity of the urban expansion area, where land transaction is
increasing and at the areas where no substantial physical development is
visible.
LR consists of acquisition of a plot of land divided into a large number of
small parcels; planning and providing necessary infrastructure such as
road, water supply, drainage, electricity and telephone, open spaces,
community service area; and give back to the owners. The cost of planning
and providing infrastructure is covered from the land itself to be
contributed by each landowner. Thus the owner gets back smaller piece of
land but with all necessary infrastructure including parks and open spaces.
Conceptual daigrm of the process is described in the following
diagram different steps in land pooling is described in the pictorial form.
Inadequate
urban
infrastructur
es
Consolidated as
single plot for the
project planning &
implementation
Areas for
community
services and
infrastructur
es
Scattered and
irregular shape
plots
`
Open space parks
roads
Urban infrastructures
Sales plots for
infrastructure
development
Developed
Plots
Polluted
urban
Environme
nt
Plots returned to land
owner
Conceptual Diagram of land Pooling Project
Source: KVTDC, 2009
Achievements:
Eleven land pooling programs have been completed in the Kathmandu
valley which developed 7320 (KVTDC, 2009) residential plots within the
total project area of 246.76 ha (KVTDC, 2009). Likewise 15 projects with
total area 1490 ha are under planning or implementation phase within the
Kathmandu Valley and eight projects are under planning or
implementation outside the Kathmandu valley (KVTDC, 2009). Biratnagar
Ring Road
Benefits:
Land Readjustment to develop residential blocks in Nepal benefited
the land owner by increasing the land value by around five times.
The technique urge the land owner to act more responsibly to general
interest and Land speculation could be minimized so far. The process could
be easily controlled by the community and municipality. Land needs to be
acquired with the result that the cost of land development is reduced and
development process made more equitable.
The benefits are many fold:
 To the land owners - quality of life improvement (this can also be
quantified by the land value increase).
 To the government - saves its investment, as the infrastructure cost are
paid by the beneficiaries themselves.
 Environmental improvements of the area (including disaster mitigation).
 Social harmony and dispute mitigation.
Practical Difficulties:
There are some real difficulties while other are perceived or created
difficulties.
Real Difficulties:
 Inaccurate and insufficient land record
 Absent land owners
 Pending court cases (mainly related to the ownership)
Perceived difficulties:




Land brokers' vested interest
Resistance to change
Long gestation period
Low confidence in procedure
Insufficient and inaccurate land record
The thickness of a line is 0.25 mm. Most of the cadastral maps are
1:1200 and in Kathmandu it is 1:500. Thus the line itself is 125mm
(=0.25mm x 500) in Kathmandu where the land price is US$1000 per
square meter. Assuming the plot depth of 30 meters, the line measures
3.75 square meters in either sides.
The positional accuracy of the line, according to the standard Nepal
adopting is 1.25, which means the inaccuracy is 18.75 (=1.25 x 500) square
meters in either sides.
The principal adopted is that the physical boundary prevails, if there
are discrepancy in the map and certificate, map and field-book. Thus, lots
of disputes arise due to this. In most of the cases, for simplicity and ease,
the certificate areas are considered.
Absent land owners
In Nepal, most of the peri-urban land has tenant and the land-lords
or their heirs are not present in the site and are difficult to contact. This
cause difficulty of getting required percentage of acceptance.
Pending court cases (mainly related to the ownership)
In Nepal many land ownership and boundary disputes goes to the
court and court take too long time to decide. Even after the verdict, many
go to the higher level court.
Perceived or created difficulties:
Land brokers' vested interest
Most of the agricultural land conversion in Nepal is being done by the
informal brokers. They convert the land into urban use piece by piece
without any proper plan and without following standards. Just recently,
land and housing companies started functioning in small but noticeable
scale. Legal possibilities for informal sector to work and too many
controlling conditions (with good intention and for betterment) for the
formal sector, is letting the conventional practice to continue. These
informal developers' functions by buying plot by plot blocking the hind
plots for very big profit. So they take land-readjustment as the suffocating
competitor. So they try to resist land-readjustment; it causes hap-hazard
growth or at best slows the development.
Resistance to change
In Nepal majority of people take the land also as the kinship identity
and assets, so they do not sell it until absolutely necessary. And people
may not be willing to change it into developed land while they are not
feeling need to develop it. Tenants doing farming not only do not want to
lose some part of their farm-land, but also afraid that the land owner will
sell the land, if it is developed.
Long gestation period
Even in the recent days, land-pooling is taking about five years to
complete the process. In the mean after the land has been pooled, if the
land owner need to built on it or sale part of it, it is not possible. So many
people are not ready to take the risk.
Low confidence in procedure
With few examples of incomplete projects and taking too long time
to complete, many still do not have confidence on it.
Learning:
The programme contributed development of infrastructure, better
environment, comfortable housing plots in Nepal, especially in Kathmandu
Valley on the expenses of land owners. Land Readjustment helps
developing urban area to the benfit of the owners through their own
contribution. The benefits are many fold - improved quality of life,
Environment and social harmony. The program has been becoming a
planning tool for the sustainable urban development of the country.
LR technique because of their self-financing character imposes no financial
burden on governments.
Some difficulties like inaccurate and insufficient land record, absent
land owners, land brokers' vested interest need to tackle patiently.
Way forwards:
Due to lack of legal structure the private sector investment is not
attracted yet in land pooling programs. Legal frame work and institutional
setup needs to be refined for the utmost output of this planning
technique. Governments’ effort to ease private sector for making project
area ‘a single plot’ for reploting; and for making consensus lacks
institutional and legal tool. Also, exploration of LR as tool for urbanized
area to initiate urban regeneration be initiated in which communities can
be mobilized.
LR scheme is very difficult to implement in such area where some
plots have already motorable accesses. Usually the people who have had
already such facilities like vehicular access etc. they are always found to be
major obstacle for lunching the LR projects. So the Town Developent Act
needs to be amended on behalf of majority consensus. So that if majority
of the people of the selected area have will to have the LR project to be
launched then the Act should have the special and strong provision to
justify for them.
References
Progress Report, Kathmandu Valley Town Development Committee, Kathmandu,
Nepal, 2009
Surya Bhakta Sangachhen, G.P.Gorkhaly and Naokazu Miyazaki (2003) Land Pooling
Manual; Department of Urban Development and Building Construction, Ministry of
Physical Planning and Works.
Town Development Act, 1988, Government of Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal, 1988
Town Development Guidelines, Ministry of Physical Planning & Works , Kathmandu,
Nepal , 2004
Mainalee, Padma K, 2013: Accessing ‘privates’ report submitted to JICA as a Part of
the training, Urban Development Focused on Land Readjustment