More than 80 percent of households in the Bagmati Rural Municipality, a remote local unit in the eastern part of Makwanpur district, are living without land ownership certificates.

The municipality, which falls in the Chure forest region, shares its border with Lalitpur, Kavre and Sindhuli district.

Around eight decades ago, government authorities had surveyed the land plots in Bagmati. The locals thought that the survey would be followed by distribution of land ownership certificates but that never happened. “This has made us perennially insecure,” said Bhim Rai, a local of Ward No. 6. “We are deprived of all government services because we don’t have a land ownership certificate to our name.”

Locals have knocked on the door of various provincial government offices in Hetauda but were directed to the local government, said Rai.

Raj Kumar Timilsina, a resident of Ward No. 8, echoed similar sentiments. He said, “Our ancestors have lived here for generations; I too have been living here for a long time now. But without a land ownership certificate, I can neither mortgage my land nor can I start a business venture, as I cannot float a loan in my name.”

Eighty-five years ago, only a few households received land titles in the first land survey. A second survey was held 44 years ago. The locals have also been paying land tax for their land plots since then only to have stopped after the start of Maoist insurgency period.

Sarkesh Ghalan, chairman of the rural municipality, however, said that the local unit has initiated the survey works to provide land to landless farmers. “We have hired technicians and started land survey works,” said Ghalan, adding that the local unit has started survey works after the federal government endorsed the Land Reform Act in Parliament and made preparations to distribute land ownership certificates.

So far, Bagmati Rural Municipality has already surveyed private land plots in Ward No.4. “We are going to distribute temporary land ownership certificates for the time being,” said Ghalan.

Nine Amins (land surveyors) have been appointed for the survey works. “We are providing temporary land ownership certificates to the farmers who have been tilling the land for the last decade,” said Ghalan, adding that they have been distributing temporary land ownership certificates on the basis of the newly endorsed legal system. “The act guarantees land ownerships to the farmers who have been cultivating the land for a decade.”

The rural municipal office has been facilitating officials to conduct the land survey and prepare a field book as endorsed in the legal system.