KATHMANDU: More than 30 years after it was commissioned and 31 years after its findings were submitted, Nepal’s government has finally decided to implement the report of the High-Level Commission on the Investigation and Protection of Government and Public Land, better known as the Rawal Commission.

The commission was formed on October 7th 1993 by the government led by former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and chaired by former secretary Ram Bahadur Rawal. After two years of investigation, it submitted a detailed report in 1995 documenting widespread encroachment of government and public land across the then Kathmandu Municipality.

The report found that 1,859 ropani, 14 aana, 3 paisa and 3 daam of public and government land had been encroached upon in all 35 wards of the capital. Its 1,350-page findings identified more than 8,000 encroachers and documented the occupation of 2,070 land parcels, including roads, ponds, public spaces, temples, riverbanks and other government property. In total, the commission estimated that nearly 10% of Kathmandu’s 18,941 ropani of public land had already fallen into private hands.

Implementation, however, stalled for decades. In 2003, a public-interest petition was filed at the Supreme Court seeking enforcement of the commission’s recommendations. On May 26th 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the government to implement the Rawal Commission report, investigate encroachment elsewhere in the country and take action in accordance with the law. Yet successive governments failed to act.

That may now be changing. A Cabinet meeting decided to enforce the report and update national records of government and public land in line with the Supreme Court’s directive. The ministries responsible for land management and federal affairs have been instructed to begin implementation, opening the door to the recovery of some of Kathmandu’s most valuable public assets and legal action against those found to have occupied them unlawfully.

The decision revives one of Nepal’s most consequential but neglected investigations, raising a question that has lingered for three decades: how did nearly 1,900 ropani of public land disappear in the heart of the capital without consequence? here is everything you need to know about Rawal Commission findings and other details about the encroached government and public land.

What did the Rawal Commission discover about the scale of public land encroachment in Kathmandu?

The Rawal Commission uncovered one of the most extensive records of public land encroachment ever documented in Nepal. Formed by the government led by former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and chaired by former secretary Ram Bahadur Rawal, the commission spent two years investigating government and public land within the Kathmandu Valley.

Its findings were staggering. The commission concluded that 1,859 ropani and 14 aana of government and public land had been illegally occupied in Kathmandu alone. The encroachments were concentrated in some of the capital’s most valuable urban areas, including Chabahil, Boudha, Battisputali, Thapathali, Baneshwor, Koteshwor, Handigaun, and Budhanilkantha.

The report found that not only vacant public land but also culturally and historically important sites had been encroached upon. Public ponds such as Kamalpokhari and Nagpokhari, stone water spouts, temples, public roads, wells, riverbanks, Guthi properties, public rest areas, and open spaces had all been affected. The commission documented cases where portions of Kamalpokhari were registered in private names, parts of Nagpokhari had become private property, and even land associated with the historic Seto Durbar had been absorbed into private ownership.

The report also identified encroachment by commercial establishments. Hotels, businesses, and private individuals were found occupying land originally designated as roads, public spaces, or government property. In Swayambhu alone, hundreds of ropani of land had been converted into houses, compounds, monasteries, vegetable gardens, and other private uses.

Perhaps most importantly, the commission did not rely on allegations alone. Investigators compared old cadastral maps with new survey records, conducted field inspections, and examined land revenue records. The result was a detailed inventory identifying specific plots, parcel numbers, occupiers, and the extent of encroachment. Yet despite the depth of the investigation, the report remained largely unimplemented for more than two decades.

How was so much public land able to disappear into private ownership?

The Rawal Commission found that public land disappeared through two main methods. The first was outright occupation, where individuals or institutions simply took control of public land and treated it as their own. The second, and far larger, method involved gradually expanding private property boundaries into adjacent public land until the encroached area effectively became part of private holdings.

According to the commission, nearly 500 ropani of public land in Kathmandu had been lost through direct occupation. Entire plots originally designated as public property were taken over by private individuals. In some wards, dozens of people occupied large areas of public land, building houses, walls, shops, and other structures.

The larger problem, however, was boundary encroachment. The commission found that 1,347 ropani of public land spread across 1,687 parcels had been absorbed into neighboring private properties by 5,978 individuals. Rather than openly seizing land, many occupiers simply shifted boundaries, extended fences, altered maps, or incorporated portions of public land into their own plots.

Some wards showed particularly severe patterns. In what was then Ward No. 10, more than 184 ropani of public land had been merged into private holdings. Similar large-scale encroachments were documented in Wards 6, 35, 7, and 16. Thousands of individuals were identified as having expanded their properties at the expense of public land.

The commission’s investigators concluded that such encroachments were not accidental. They were often facilitated by weaknesses in land administration, inaccurate records, and in some cases alleged collusion between landowners and officials responsible for surveys and land registration. Because public land records were often incomplete or poorly maintained, influential individuals found opportunities to alter boundaries and secure legal recognition for land that originally belonged to the public.

The findings suggested that public land was not disappearing because of isolated mistakes but because of a systematic failure to protect and monitor public assets.

Why has the Rawal Commission Report remained largely unimplemented for more than 30 years?

The story of the Rawal Commission is not only about land encroachment; it is also about a quarter-century of government inaction. After the commission submitted its report in 1995, the Cabinet immediately formed committees to investigate encroached land and recommend action. However, those committees produced little or no meaningful results. Subsequent governments established additional task forces, working groups, and review mechanisms, yet implementation repeatedly stalled.

One committee was authorized to recommend whether illegally occupied public land should be demolished, leased, or sold. Another was tasked with determining fair market values for occupied public land so that disputes could be resolved. Neither initiative achieved significant progress.

The issue eventually reached the Supreme Court. In 2010, responding to a public interest litigation filed by advocate Prakash Mani Sharma, the court ordered the government to implement the Rawal Commission Report and give high priority to recovering encroached public land across the country. The court also directed the formation of a special committee to determine how the state could reclaim occupied land. Despite these directives, implementation remained weak.

Former members of the commission have repeatedly stated that the report already provided the government with all necessary information. According to former Survey Department Director General Baburam Acharya, investigators had compared historical and contemporary maps, reviewed land records, and physically inspected disputed sites. In his view, government agencies already possessed sufficient evidence to act.

Critics argue that one reason for the long delay is the sensitivity of the findings themselves. The report reportedly implicated numerous influential individuals, including politically connected figures, senior officials, prominent businesspeople, and other powerful actors. For many years, even obtaining the full report proved difficult. While government agencies occasionally acknowledged that approximately 1,800 ropani of land had been encroached upon, the detailed findings remained largely inaccessible to the public.

As a result, the Rawal Commission became a symbol of a broader governance problem in Nepal: major investigations can identify wrongdoing, quantify losses, and recommend solutions, yet meaningful implementation often falters when powerful interests are involved. The report’s continued relevance today reflects both the scale of the original findings and the fact that many of its recommendations remain unfinished business more than 25 years later.

Which Prominent Figures Were Identified by the Rawal Commission as Occupying Government and Public Land?

The list of individuals accused of encroaching on government and public land, as identified in a report prepared over two years by the commission, includes some of Nepal’s most influential figures.

According to the report obtained by Nepal News investigation bureau, those found occupying government and public land include not only former foreign ministers and a former home minister, but even a former president.

The commission’s report states that land registered under former Foreign Minister Bhes Bahadur Thapa, identified as Parcel No. 8, Sheet No. 1106-13, covers 3 ropani, 13 aana and 2 paisa. However, the report found that 1 ropani, 11 aana and 1 paisa of that area overlaps with public land.

The report also found that former Foreign Minister Ramesh Nath Pandey had encroached upon a public roadway and was using 4 aana, 3 paisa and 4 daam of public land.

Others named in the list of alleged encroachers include Minendra Rijal, former Lieutenant General Ganesh Shamsher Rana and Kaman Singh Lama, among other influential individuals.

The report further names more than 5,000 individuals, including Kishor Raj Pandey, Hari Bahadur Thapa, Rajesh Ahiraj, UML leader Indra Kumar Chamling, Renuka Gautam, Kusum Agrawal, Bed Prakash Upreti, Prakash Jung Rayamajhi, Kirtan Krishna Bhattarai, Annapurna Gurung, Bhaba Kumar Upadhyaya, Surendra Pratap Shah, Basudev Sapkota and Mahesh Chandra Aryal.

The commission had also concluded that Bhadra Ghale had illegally occupied public land. According to the report, structures built on the land occupied by Ghale have already been demolished. However, authorities have yet to clear or reclaim land occupied by many other influential individuals identified in the report.

What has the government done to implement the Rawal Commission Report, and why is it significant?

In a move that could revive one of Nepal’s longest-pending land governance initiatives, the government has formed an eight-member facilitation committee to implement the Rawal Commission Report, formally known as the High-Level Commission on the Investigation and Protection of Government and Public Land Report 1995. The committee is headed by Krishna Prasad Sapkota, Deputy Director General of the Survey Department, and was established by the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation following a directive from the Cabinet.

The decision came after a Cabinet meeting held at Singha Durbar instructed the ministry to move forward with implementing the report, which has remained largely dormant for decades despite documenting extensive encroachment of government and public land. The newly formed committee includes representatives from key government agencies, including the Home Ministry, infrastructure-related agencies, land administration offices, survey authorities, and the Department of Land Management and Archives.

According to Land Management Minister Pratibha Rawal, the committee has been tasked with coordinating among relevant institutions and completing the groundwork necessary to enforce the report’s recommendations as quickly as possible. The minister said the Cabinet’s decision has finally opened the door to implementing a report that had remained untouched for years despite repeated concerns over illegal occupation of public property.

The significance of the move lies in the contents of the Rawal Commission Report itself. The report identified numerous cases of government and public land being occupied, transferred, or used by powerful individuals and institutions. Over the years, questions have persisted about why successive governments failed to act on its findings. If fully implemented, the report could lead to the recovery of encroached public land, renewed investigations into disputed land holdings, and greater accountability in land administration.

The formation of the committee therefore represents the first concrete administrative step in years toward translating the report’s findings into action. Whether it ultimately results in the reclamation of public land and enforcement against influential encroachers will depend on the government’s willingness to follow through on the commission’s recommendations.

Why Is government and public land in Nepal continuing to disappear, and what can be done to protect it?

Despite having laws, institutions, and administrative mechanisms designed to protect government, public, and Guthi land, Nepal continues to lose significant amounts of public property, particularly in urban areas and the Tarai. Illegal encroachment, fraudulent registration, weak record-keeping, institutional negligence, and political influence have combined to create a system in which public land is steadily shrinking while accountability remains limited.

A common explanation is that landlessness and unmanaged settlements are the primary causes of encroachment. However, this is only part of the story. While landless families often settle on public land because they have few alternatives, large-scale land grabbing is overwhelmingly carried out by influential individuals and groups with political, economic, or bureaucratic connections. These actors are often able to manipulate administrative systems, forge documents, or use their influence to register public land in private names.

One of the biggest structural problems is the lack of reliable records. Survey offices, land revenue offices, and Guthi institutions are supposed to maintain accurate records of public land, yet even the government does not possess a complete and verified inventory of how much public land exists, where it is located, or who currently occupies it. Policy changes have further weakened protection. For example, earlier survey laws required government and public land to be identified before other land was measured and registered, but this provision was removed in 2000, making public land more vulnerable to encroachment.

Investigations have also revealed a pattern in which powerful individuals register public land using forged documents or administrative collusion and then secure favorable court rulings, effectively shielding questionable ownership claims from future challenges. Complaints examined by government commissions have shown that many disputed parcels had already been legitimized through judicial decisions, making recovery far more difficult.

Government efforts to address the problem have been inconsistent. Over the years, various administrations have issued directives, formed commissions, and conducted investigations. The most notable was the Rawal Commission, formed in 1994 to investigate encroachment in the Kathmandu Valley. The commission identified approximately 1,860 ropani of encroached government and public land and submitted its findings to the government. However, its recommendations were never fully implemented. Later initiatives, including district-level public land inventories and the 2019 Commission on the Protection of Government, Public, and Guthi Land, also produced reports and recommendations, but implementation remained limited.

The deeper challenge is that public land has become the responsibility of government agencies alone, while local communities have little sense of ownership or involvement in its protection. As a result, citizens often assume that safeguarding public land is solely the government’s responsibility. Where communities have actively monitored and used public land, however, encroachment has been significantly lower.

Many experts therefore argue that Nepal should adopt a strategy of “protection through use.” Under this approach, local governments would create detailed inventories of all public land, including maps, parcel numbers, and land area, and make these records publicly available. Communities would then be given a greater role in managing and utilizing appropriate public land. When people benefit from public land and develop a sense of ownership, they are more likely to protect it from encroachment.

Unused riverbank land, abandoned grazing fields, fallow public land, and other underutilized government property could be leased under strict conditions to economically vulnerable households for farming and productive activities. Such a policy could increase agricultural production, create employment, improve local incomes, and simultaneously protect land from illegal occupation.

At the same time, Nepal must address the underlying causes of landlessness. Landless families, informal settlers, and former bonded laborers require durable solutions under existing laws. Rather than distributing public land indiscriminately, the government should enforce landholding ceilings and distribute land acquired through legal land reform mechanisms. Public land, riverbanks, forests, grazing grounds, and other common resources should not be permanently transferred to private individuals or institutions.

Nepal’s legal framework requires significant reform. Laws governing land administration, surveys, forests, local government, roads, and civil property rights often overlap, conflict, or leave responsibilities unclear. This fragmentation allows agencies to shift responsibility to one another, resulting in weak enforcement. A comprehensive review of all relevant legislation, aligned with international best practices, is needed to create a clear and effective system for protecting public assets.

Government and public land in Nepal continues to disappear because of weak records, poor governance, political influence, legal loopholes, and limited community involvement. Protecting these lands will require not only stronger enforcement and legal reform, but also a shift toward community stewardship, transparent land records, productive utilization, and long-term solutions for landlessness. Without such reforms, public land risks gradually passing from public ownership into the hands of powerful private interests, undermining both social equity and the public interest.