Turning Nepal's Sukumbasi Crisis into an Urban Opportunity

Nepal’s Sukumbasi (landless and squatters) question is commonly portrayed as a dispute over public land. In Kathmandu and a few other cities, it periodically emerges as the illegal occupation of riverbanks, floodplains, and other public lands. Efforts to clear these settlements are often criticized as "dozer terror," raising concerns about the abuse of governmental authority and violations of human rights. In the Tarai, the issue is associated with forest encroachment, unplanned settlements, and disputed land ownership. In the mid-hills, it is reflected in the erosion of agrarian livelihoods and the gradual migration of families to towns, often triggered when younger family members leave the country for foreign employment. These seemingly disparate manifestations, however, obscure the underlying reality: landlessness is no longer simply an agrarian issue. It has become a central challenge of Nepal’s urban transition and a critical question for the country’s social and economic development.