KATHMANDU: Political parties in Nepal that once championed movements against feudal land ownership are now under fire for enabling a new form of land concentration in the hands of big corporations and business houses.
Both ruling and opposition parties have been backing legal amendments that allow firms and corporate groups to own land holdings beyond the legal ceiling, a practice critics are calling corporate land grabbing.
Since the promulgation of the Constitution, the Land Act of 1964 has already been amended more than half a dozen times. Successive governments, from KP Sharma Oli to Pushpa Kamal Dahal and the current coalition, have each pushed changes that expand exemptions on land ceiling rules in the name of investment facilitation.
A recent ordinance introduced by the Oli government in early 2025 sought to let registered companies develop and sell land plots or houses, but it failed after coalition partner Janata Samajwadi Party (JSP), led by Upendra Yadav, opposed provisions related to converting national park and forest land. While JSP objected to the redistribution of protected land, it did not resist clauses allowing industries and firms to legally surpass the land ceiling.
Series of amendments favoring Corporates
The trend began after the 2017 parliamentary elections, when the Oli-led Nepal Communist Party amended the law to grant one-time land to landless Dalits. But by 2019, his government introduced an eighth amendment that for the first time opened a channel for industries, companies, and institutions to justify ownership of land exceeding the ceiling.
In 2021, Oli’s Cabinet went further, approving the transfer of tea estate land in Jhapa to Giribandhu Tea Estate Pvt. Ltd., a decision later struck down by the Supreme Court. Soon after, his government issued an order allowing firms to purchase land beyond the ceiling.
The Dahal-led government that followed in 2022 also continued with legal changes, enabling industries to not only exceed land limits but also sell excess land to repay loans, a move critics argue promotes land speculation rather than industrial growth.
Most recently, the government tabled the Land (Seventh Amendment) Bill, 2025, reviving provisions from Oli’s failed ordinance. The bill, now in Parliament with 55 amendment proposals filed by lawmakers, again pushes for land ceiling relaxations for companies.
Analysts say the legislative pattern reflects a bipartisan effort to consolidate land in the hands of a few corporate houses under the pretext of promoting investment.
Contradicting their own manifestos
Ironically, these same parties had once mobilized peasants on slogans of land to the tiller and promised to dismantle feudal landlordism.
The Nepali Congress, in its very first manifesto in 1959, pledged to nationalize birta land grants, abolish the zamindari system, and enforce ceilings with redistribution of surplus land. Early communist manifestos also called for the uncompensated elimination of landlordism and distribution of land to tenant farmers.
Today, however, their policies appear to be steering toward creating corporate landlords — a stark departure from their founding commitments.
Experts raise alarms
Former government secretary Kedar Nyaupane warned that repeated ceiling exemptions are a slippery slope. “Industries were allowed land only for specific uses, like tea plantations. Once those purposes end, the land should revert to the state. Instead, successive amendments are making it easier for businesses to retain and trade such land. This shows the government is working in favor of old feudal elites now disguised as corporations,” he said.
He cautioned that allowing large private holdings will deepen inequality. “The poor cannot afford to buy land, but corporations can buy endlessly. Without jobs or land, the poor will be crushed.”
Left-leaning political economist Hari Roka called the shift a betrayal of historic struggles. “What began as ‘land to the tiller’ has now become commodification of land. Rather than supporting small farmers, policies are channeling land into the hands of corporate houses. This displaces ordinary cultivators,” he argued.
Former Finance Minister and UML Vice-Chair Surendra Pandey also expressed dissatisfaction, calling for a “comprehensive new land policy.” He suggested categorizing land into agricultural, industrial, residential, and commercial uses, with strict rules preventing agricultural and industrial land from being diverted elsewhere. “Current piecemeal amendments only serve vested interests,” he warned.
A new kind of landlordism?
Observers note that in Nepal’s shifting political landscape, the rhetoric of agrarian reform has given way to the politics of land speculation. Instead of empowering landless peasants as once promised, recent policies risk creating corporate landlords, raising the prospect of new inequalities and social conflict.
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