Securing Land Rights for All through Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration Approach: The Case of Nepal

Uma Shankar Panday,Jagat Deuja,Danilo Antonio,Stig Enemark,Raja Ram Chhatkuli,Janak Raj Joshi

doi:10.3390/land10070744

Uma Shankar Panday, Jagat Deuja + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/land10070744

Copy DOI

Abstract

After the political change in Nepal of 1951, leapfrog land policy improvements have been recorded, however, the land reform initiatives have been short of full success. Despite a land administration system based on cadaster and land registries in place, 25% of the arable land with an estimated 10 million spatial units on the ground are informally occupied and are off-register. Recently, a strong political will has emerged to ensure land rights for all. Providing tenure security to all these occupants using the conventional surveying and land administration approach demands a large amount of skilled human resources, a long timeframe and a huge budget. To assess the suitability of the fit-for-purpose land administration (FFPLA) approach for nationwide mapping and registration of informality in the Nepalese context, the identification, verification and recordation (IVR) of the people-to-land relationship was conducted through two pilot studies using a participatory approach covering around 1500 and 3400 parcels, respectively, in an urban and a rural setting. The pilot studies were based on the FFPLA National Strategy and utilized satellite imageries and smartphones for identification and verification of land boundaries. Data collection to verification tasks were completed within seven months in the urban settlements and for an average cost of 7.5 USD per parcel; within the rural setting, the pilot study was also completed within 7 months and for an average cost of just over 3 USD per parcel. The studies also informed the discussions on building the legislative and institutional frameworks, which are now in place. With locally trained ‘grassroots surveyors’, the studies have provided a promising alternative to the conventional surveying technologies by providing a fast, inexpensive and acceptable solution. The tested approach may fulfill the commitment to resolve the countrywide mapping of informality. The use of consistent data model and mapping standards are recommended.

Highlights

Photo images of these documents were captured by locally deployed grassroots surveyors using a smartphone which was later linked with the people-to-land relationship maintained in the STDM software
GNSS-enabled smartphones and free and open-source software tools were used for mapping in two different scenarios—dense settlements and areas dominated by relatively large agricultural fields
The pilot studies conclude that the high-resolution satellite imageries and freely available open-source software like STDM could be used in a participatory approach by locally trained ‘grassroots surveyors’ to quickly and inexpensively map large areas which would otherwise require highly-skilled human resources, large infrastructure and decades of time for mapping while using the conventional approaches

Summary

Introduction

The land tenure system in Nepal has a history of orientation to feudal landlordism. Until the political change of 1951 when the country was turned into a democratic set-up, most of the fertile land of the state was granted by the aristocratic rulers to various elites who turned to be landlords. The real tillers on land, were left behind with limited access and poorly recognized tenure rights on the land they operate. A large proportion of the arable land is unregistered in the national record [1,2,3]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion