In connection with this report, we visited government and NGO offices, and kamaiya settlements in Bardia and Kailali district. We carried out interviews with local government officers, NGO representatives and freed kamaiyas.

1. The Government has made an announcement to provide to provide maximum 5 kattha of land to the families of former kamaiyas. To receive land and other rehabilitation services, freed kamaiya families must be issued an identity card from the local Land Reform Office. The government’s identification of kamaiyas and distribution of ID cards has been ongoing for months. According to the District Land Reform Offices they have now completed their first phase registering the names. They are not registering any new names, while they proceed with distribution of land to those registered. However, many kamaiyas in the camps have still not received ID cards. Now that the land distribution process has started for real, there is considerable worry and discontent as some kamaiyas in camps are being offered resettlement, while others are not.

2. In Kailali district, the Land Reform office reported that they have distributed 2500 Red Cards (indicating a landless freed kamaiya family) out of a total of 5679 government-identified kamaiyas. They claim that only a few hundred landless freed kamaiya families are left without cards. However, in the settlements we visited over half of the kamaiyas report that they have not received identity cards. For instance in Aattaria settlement around 16 kamaiya families have not received red card out of 40 households altogether. Similarly in Malakheti another settlement 20 household out of 78 have not received red cards.

3. There has considerable controversy over the government survey with many kamaiyas claiming that they were not included. In order to document the extent of undercounting, local NGOs conducted their own “hut to hut” survey of the freed kamaiyas in five districts. They found a total of 22,677 households in five districts, a deviance of 25.9% from the government survey. Similar levels of deviance exist in the specific category of landless kamaiyas.

4. The reasons that some kamaiyas were not included in the card distribution are various. Some reasons given by the kamaiyas include:

a. Many families were missed in the initial survey by the government.

b. The Land Reform Office created a process for families that the registration initially missed. This is a long process, however that requires a kamaiya getting the signature of his previous landlord (to certify him as a previous kamaiya). Many landlords were not willing to sign the documents.

c. The Land Reform Offices themselves operate inefficiently. Even families that are registered as “Red Category,” or landless, kamaiyas complained that they had been unable to receive their cards, despite visiting the land reform office many times. Our own visit to the Office confirmed this, with hundreds of men and women camped on the street and in the corridors attempting to get their case moved along.

d. Initially the local governments in the districts said that they would recognize names of freed kamaiyas brought by cooperating NGOs. Many kamaiyas registered their names through the NGOs. In Kailali district alone, over 2000 families are registered this way. The Land Reform Office subsequently decided against including the names, leaving many families outside of the government process.

5. The Land Reform Office in Kailali stated that they would reopen the process after completing the first round of land distribution. It is not immediately clear if this round can be successful before the freed kamaiyas are more completely registered. In one camp we visited the families who had received ID cards had decided to resist attempts to move them elsewhere, until the other families in the settlement also received cards. They have the perception that they government is not going to provide any land for the families remaining.

6. The names and previous addresses of the freed kamaiyas are included in the NGO survey. This would be a good starting place to move forward. The government and NGOs together could check up on the background of the families in question.

7. Sher Bahadur Deuba, the new Prime Minister, has promised to finish the process of distributing land within the month of Paush (mid-January 2002). This is the 5^th time the government has extended its deadline for completing process since freedom declaration in July last year. It is doubtful, however, that the new deadline will be met either however as the registration of kamaiyas is still incomplete.

8. The current distribution program has been plagued by many problems. Many Freed kamaiyas have received Lal Purja, or Land Ownerwhip Certificates, without being shown any real plots of land.

9. The government’s process of identifying available land has been hampered in many places by an underlying conflict between the Forest Ministry and the Land Reform Ministry. Inititially, Land Reform officials had indicated that they intended to make land available by reclaiming Ailani, or unregistered, land that is often cultivated illegally by large landowners. This would save Forest Land and was supported by the Forest Ministry. However, it now appears that the government has decided to distribute forest land instead. In Kailali district, the Forest Office informed us that they had designated 517 bigha to distribute to 2,662 families (an average of 3.8 Katta.)

10. The size of plots given to the former kamaiyas is in many cases less than 5 kattha (0.15 hectare). Whole settlements are planned with plots of 3 kattha per household. We found instances where families had been given as little as 1 kattha (0.03 hectare), even ½ kattha. These plots are far from what is needed for basic food-sufficiency of a family.

11. The distribution of small plots of land has continued despite the government’s announcement of the Land Reform Bill, which plans to provide each landless Nepali family with a minimum of 5 kattha of land. It seems contradictory for the government to be proclaiming 5 kattha as a legal minimum for land reform programs, while at the same time providing freed kamaiya families with much less than this. The government could provide the kamaiyas with 5 kattha under current guidelines (which provide for a maximum of 5 kattha), but in many cases they are not doing this. When we asked local Land Reform Officials about this, they stated simply that they had received no new instructions from Kathmandu regarding this.

12. The quality of plots distributed varies greatly. In some cases, as in the settlement by Kohalpur, in Banke District, it is quite good though even here they received less than 5 katthas. In other cases, the plots are so poor as to be almost worthless. Some plots are in areas about to be eaten by rivers, some with sandy soil, and some simply too far from laboring opportunities.

13. Our own visual estimates was that some plots distributed may not in reality measure up to the size indicated on the Land Certificates.

14. The Land certificates only show husbands picture, contrary to land disrtibution guidelines adopted by Landless People's Problem Solving Commission (Sukumbasi Samassaya Samadhan Ayog). Both the husband and wife are meant to be shown on the picture, to ensure their joint ownership.

15. In general there seems to be a lack of long-term vision in the rehabilitation programs. Even 5 kattha plot sizes are not at all sufficient to provide subsistence for the families. In settlements close to the bazaars daily wage labor may support the families. But subsistence will be very difficult in the many settlements being designated on forestland away from other villages. Here the government's policy seems to be directly encouraging illegal use of forest materials and/or further encroachment, as well as ongoing dependency on aid programs.

16. Integrated planning, including various governmental departments, NGOs and donors/INGOs, is needed to provide a strategy for kamaiyas livelihoods in the future. The government seems to be missing the historic opportunity of its freedom declaration to significantly improve the lives of 100,000 of its citizens.

17. With many freed kamaiyas settled illegally on forestland, the threat of government harassment is still very much present. Forest Officers and an assembled group of locals burned down one settlement of over 200 households near Tikapur on the 22nd of September. The Forest Office claimed that it was a squatter settlement, and further stated that they would not evict any kamaiyas until the government completed its resettlement program. NGO activists admitted that there were other landless squatters in the settlement in question, but stated that at least 40% of them were unregistered kamaiyas. When the Forest Office clears settlements, they demand that kamaiyas produce ID cards to have their huts saved. However, as a significant number of the freed kamaiyas still have not received ID cards, they have no way of proving to the Forest Office that they are kamaiyas.

18. There are on-going inconsistencies in punishment of forest encroachment. Near some kamaiya settlements, other squatters have been allowed to stay. The Land Reform office continues its policy distributing land through legalizing existing encroachments. Other families are issued land certificates for as much as 1.5 bigha (30 kattha) under this policy.

19. Almost no freed kamaiya children attend school. Some local schools have agreed to admit children without fees, but this is a stopgap measure. In practice all public schools charge some kind of fees like exam fee, enrollment fee etc. (RS 500-1000 a year). Although it looks like an insignificant amount it is one of the main reasons that many kamaiya children do not attend school.

20. There is a need for Early Childhood Development Centers, school outreach programme and need based education classes for adults in the settlements.

21. We learned that many girl children and adolescents have taken to the nearby town areas in a very minimal wages for domestic, hotels and teashop labor. In the camps themselves, children and infants have suffered and in many cases died from monsoon-related diseases

22. In most settlements we visited the kamaiyas had planted their own crops of rice, which was getting ready to be harvested. The quality of the crop varies. On average the families will produce rice for 2 to 4 months. Although the harvest will provide relief for kamaiyas in the short term, it also underscores the problem of the small plot sizes. The harvests are far from sufficient to cover families’ subsistence needs over a year.

23. Kamaiyas in the settlements are aware of minimum wages - RS 60 a day fixed by HMG (in Kanchanpur District it is RS 80, as per decision of the District Development Committee). They can bargain for minimum wages only during harvesting and plantation. At this time, they general receive above the minimum wage, sometimes earning as much as RS 90 to 100. In other seasons they have to compromise, sometimes even taking RS 30 because there are limited jobs available.

24. Japanese Encephalitis, diarrhea and other monsoon sicknesses have caused severe problems in the past months.

25. Access to clean drinking water is still a problem in many settlements.

26. Rehabilitation programs have been delayed by the governments delay in land-distribution. We observed the GTZ food-for-work program and other rehabilitation programs seen in one or two settlements. Programs providing food, education, and drinking water have not reach most settlements, however, as the providers are waiting for the kamaiyas to be settled permanently.

27. Programs in the settlements are distributed very unevenly, with a few settlements receiving most of the attention. In general, settlements close to bazaars receive most of the attention. In Kailali for example, three or four settlements near to Dhangadi have received Non-formal Education, income generation support and other programs, whereas other settlements in the same districts receive nothing. Ironically, it is often the families in settlements far from the bazaar that need rehabilitation programs the most as they have limited sources of income. In Bardiya district, where the highest numbers of kamaiyas families live, next to no activities are being carried out.

28. The coordination between INGOs and other aid agencies involved has been very limited. As larger agencies such as ILO, GTZ, and ADB plan their own kamaiya rehabilitation programs, there has been a feeling among some smaller INGOs that their funds and efforts may be better spent elsewhere. However, the continued reluctance of the larger agencies to engage in the difficult political questions facing the kamaiyas, such as land and registration issues, means that there is still a vital role to played by smaller, more flexible agencies.

29. Coordination among local NGOs has also weakened considerably since the initial success of the Freedom Movement. The Kamaiya Movement Mobilization Committee is no longer active in pressuring and coordinating with the government. This is a loss for the kamaiyas who are facing many problems in rehabilitation process and now more than ever need civil society organizations to monitor the government and support their cause. One local activist suggested that if the NGOs could still function as a coordination group, meeting regularly to update each other and respond to government, even if they cannot cooperate on implementing programs.