Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, and Federal Affairs and General Administration, Pratibha Rawal, is scheduled to visit Jhapa district on Monday, November 2, corresponding to Kartik 16, with land problems and the grievances of cooperative victims at the centre of her agenda. During the visit, the minister will hold discussions with members of the District Land Problem Resolution Committee and with people affected by the troubles facing cooperatives. She will also interact with local residents to hear directly from landless families about their difficulties and to discuss possible solutions with them.

According to the announced schedule, the minister's programme in the largely agrarian Terai district of Koshi Province will centre on three main engagements:

  • Discussions with members of the District Land Problem Resolution Committee on land-related problems in the district
  • Talks with people affected by cooperative problems, including those who have suffered losses
  • An interaction with local residents, with a focus on landless families and their concerns

Focus on Land Problems

A principal purpose of Monday's visit is to review the land issues pending before the District Land Problem Resolution Committee in Jhapa. Committees of this kind function as the district-level mechanism for settling land-related disputes and problems that remain unresolved through the regular administrative process. The questions they handle range from ownership and tenancy disputes to the claims of families who have lived on or cultivated plots of land for years, sometimes generations, without holding formal titles.

Landlessness remains one of the most stubborn problems in Nepal's land administration. Successive governments have announced rehabilitation and land-distribution programmes for landless (sukumbasi) households, and the process of issuing land ownership certificates to eligible families has continued over the years, though it has often moved more slowly than affected communities would like. As the federal body responsible for land management and land reform, the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation oversees these efforts. For the landless families of Jhapa, the interaction with Rawal offers a direct channel to place their cases before the minister who heads that machinery.

Cooperatives in the Spotlight

The second strand of the visit concerns cooperative victims. Cooperatives, and in particular savings and credit cooperatives, have an extensive presence across Nepal and are often described, alongside the public and private sectors, as a pillar of the national economy. In recent years, however, mismanagement and defaults in a number of cooperatives have left many depositors unable to withdraw their savings, making the plight of cooperative victims one of the most prominent public grievances in the country.

The cooperative sector falls within the regulatory purview of the same ministry that Rawal leads. Depositors affected by troubled cooperatives have long sought the recovery of their savings and action against those responsible, and their demands have featured prominently in public debate. Rawal's scheduled interaction with cooperative victims in Jhapa is intended to give them a direct hearing and to discuss what remedies might be possible at the administrative and policy level.

One Portfolio, Linked Concerns

The two themes of the visit sit within a single, unusually broad portfolio. Land, cooperatives and poverty alleviation are closely connected areas of policy: secure land ownership is widely regarded as a foundation for economic and social security, while cooperatives operate as a key vehicle for savings, credit and collective enterprise in rural communities. By meeting landless families and cooperative victims on the same day, the minister is expected to gather first-hand feedback on two of the main fronts of her ministry's work.

The discussions with the District Land Problem Resolution Committee, meanwhile, are likely to feed into the committee's ongoing task of resolving pending land cases in the district. Jhapa, a densely settled agricultural district in the eastern Terai, has a substantial stake in how land records, ownership questions and rehabilitation programmes are handled, and residents' concerns on these matters have persisted for years.

Monday's engagements are scheduled against this backdrop. For the landless families and cooperative victims taking part, the visit represents an opportunity to present their problems directly to the minister responsible, while for the ministry it offers a reading of how its land and cooperative agendas stand on the ground in Jhapa. The discussions are expected to inform the ministry's handling of land problem resolution and cooperative grievances in the district in the period ahead.