Nepal’s long-disputed land bill has finally passed through a significant hurdle. The parliament’s Agriculture, Cooperatives and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday endorsed the bill with revisions, overcoming months of political wrangling, strong opposition, and controversy over allegations of attempts to violate land ownership ceiling.

The Bill to Amend Some Nepal Acts Relating to Land, 2025, was passed by a majority in the committee on Thursday.

According to the revised bill, land allotted for specific purposes cannot be misused or left unused. Housing businesses must strictly follow government rules and obtain environmental approvals.

Marginalised squatters are given priority in land ownership. Land in protected areas cannot be privately owned unless occupied before 2013, as per the bill.

Earlier, lawmakers from the ruling coalition partners—Nepali Congress and CPN-UML—disputed over certain provisions of the bill.

Pratima Gautam, a Congress lawmaker and a member of the House committee, said the amendment proposal registered by the Congress lawmakers on the bill has been incorporated in the newly finalised bill.

“The party became ready to endorse the bill after the issues were addressed following a clause-wise discussion on the amendment proposal,” Gautam said.

Congress lawmaker Rajan Kumar KC was among the committee members who registered the amendment proposal on the bill. He said their concerns were addressed through the revision of the bill.

Gautam said that the opposition parties were positive on the revised bill, apart from an issue regarding apartment-related provision. But later, they walked away from the meeting hall while passing the bill from the committee, she said.

During the decision-making process about the bill, lawmakers from the opposition CPN (Maoist Centre) and Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) expressed strong reservations over some provisions.

Both opposition parties had sought time until Friday before endorsing the bill. They accused both ruling parties of insisting on immediately approving the bill on Thursday itself.

However, the committee members from the ruling parties claimed that the amendment proposals were distributed to the committee members earlier for study, and no further time was needed.

Independent lawmaker Yogendra Mandal said that Maoist lawmaker Rupa Shoshi Chaudhary and RSP lawmaker Ashok Kumar Chaudhary had asked for more time to include their views on the bill.

“After the opposition lawmaker tried to politicise the bill in the name of further discussion, the ruling parties insisted on endorsing the bill from the committee on Thursday itself,” Mandal told the Post.

The land bill endorsed by the committee is not new; it is a revised version of the earlier one, with some changes in the legal language.

“If the land allotted for agricultural, industrial, or other specified purposes is left vacant, under-utilised, or used for other than stated purposes, or if a business or company conducts housing business in the name of such land, such land shall be confiscated by the government,” reads the revised bill.

Rupa Shoshi Chaudhary, a committee member of the Maoist Centre, said that they had demanded a specific land ceiling for real estate and apartments but that was not accepted while finalising the bill.

“We also demanded that the squatters and unmanaged settlers be provided with land,” Chaudhary said.

The latest version of the bill endorsed by the committee allows for the sale of land plots, houses, and apartments once built. It also requires that land acquired beyond the ceiling for a specific purpose be used for that particular purpose.

The committee has separated the provision relating to landless squatters and unmanaged settlers, originally included under a single clause, and added an explicit provision to identify unmanaged settlers.

Earlier, Congress lawmakers had halted the government’s move to endorse the bill on a fast-track basis without sending it to the House committee.

Against the plan of the KP Sharma Oli’s government and the UML to get the bill endorsed from the lower house on July 10, senior Congress leaders insisted that it be sent to the House committee for detailed deliberations. The bill was eventually sent to the House committee.

Congress general secretaries duo Gagan Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma registered amendments to the land-related bill on May 23 to prevent the land mafia from exploiting legal loopholes.

Thapa and Sharma, along with a few other Congress lawmakers, proposed a seven-point amendment that referred to previous misuse of land exceeding legal land ownership ceiling such as by Patanjali Yogpeeth and Giri Bandhu Tea Estate. They emphasised that the new law shouldn’t allow such actions in future.

Congress lawmakers proposed amendments to section 12(g) of the Land Act by adding section 12(h) to prohibit land granted for agricultural, industrial, educational, or health purposes from being used for other uses, such as housing or real estate development, including apartments and housing plots.

Congress lawmakers also suggested removing the term “unmanaged settlers” from Clause 52 (b) of the original Act, arguing that vague classifications could lead to misuse of the provision.

Furthermore, they demanded amendments to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1973, citing that lands shown as forest or shrubland on maps inhabited by landless people could be misused under the current proposal to re-map and reclassify these lands to allow land distribution to favoured ones.

Addressing the concern of Congress lawmakers, the revised bill states that if any private land lies inside a National Park, Wildlife Reserve, Conservation Area, Buffer Zone, or other areas specified by the government, such land cannot be registered in the name of individuals or families.

However, if local residents are found to be living there permanently before February 10, 2013, such land may be managed for them through proper mapping, subject to approval.

The government’s controversial land bill was also under scrutiny after lawmakers linked some provisions in the legislation to the disputed landholding case of Giribandhu Tea Estate, Jhapa.

Sensing foul play in legislation, cross-party lawmakers had stopped the government’s plan to endorse the bill through a fast-track process.

On April 26, 2021, a Cabinet meeting of the erstwhile Oli government allowed land above the legal ceiling to be exchanged and sold.

This allowed the Jhapa-based Giribandhu Tea Estate to swap land exceeding the legal ownership ceiling in any other place within Koshi Province.

The court challenged the government’s decision as ‘policy corruption’. The decision was reportedly aimed at using the pricey land to build apartments and other commercial purposes after swapping it with land in a remote part of the same province.

At least 55 lawmakers from various parties registered amendments to the bill. Lawmakers from the Janata Samajbadi Party-Nepal, which strongly opposed the bill earlier, said they are yet to study the bill after it was endorsed by the committee.

“We are yet to read the revised bill to know whether our amendment proposal has been incorporated,” said Raj Kishor Yadav, vice-chair of JSP-N.

The JSP-N had foiled the Oli government’s plan to amend land-related laws through ordinance when the parliament was not in session earlier this year. Then the government registered a bill to amend the law in the House.