Case Study Areas

As mentioned in Section 3.2 above, the land administration systems of Nepal, Bangladesh and Thailand are selected as the main case studies in this research. More specifically, the property formalisation programme of Chulachuli Village Development Committee (VDC)

68 in Nepal and the surveying settlement programme of Gharinda Union, Bangladesh provide the focus of the investigation. The research questions posed in this research seek to investigate the changes in land use, land value, investment and income promoted by land administration which may be analysed from the study of recently launched programme in those areas.

The land titling programme of Thailand is selected as it has been considered as one of the successful land titling projects contributing to agricultural production and the land market in Thailand. Information about the role of land titling in Thai economy collected from the secondary sources (for instance, studies by Feder et. al., 1988; AusAID, 2000) provides opportunity to compare these findings with the situation of Nepal and Bangladesh, specifically in case of third research question posed in this research. Since there is already some body of knowledge exist to address this research question in case of Thailand, household level data is not collected applying a slightly different approach for data collection. However, data required to answer other questions, especially to measure the effectiveness of land administration services are collected from Thailand too as there is a gap of research focusing this issue. Moreover, the selection of Thailand also makes possible to throw light on the lessons learnt from the land titling programme in the current scenario.

There are several reasons for selecting the case study areas. This research aims to assess the role of land administration in economic development so that a developing country where the role of land administration functions could be analysed would be an obvious candidate. Both Nepal and Bangladesh are developing countries in which there are some areas where land administration activities have been carried out recently. Most of the people in both countries still depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Also, the agriculture sector is one of the main contributors to their national economy. Nepal and Bangladesh are in the same geographic region and are in a similar position of economic development. Furthermore, the origin of the land administration systems in Nepal and Bangladesh is similar and both countries are adopting the deed registration system. Thus, the information collected from the study will provide the answer to the research questions posed in Chapter One.

69 Thailand is ahead of both Nepal and Bangladesh in terms of the level of economic development as well as the development of land administration. The contribution of agriculture sector is still significant to the Thai economy, which was promoted after the implementation of a twenty-year land titling programme between 1985 and 2004. It has adopted the title registration system which provides a guarantee of registered title, unlike in Nepal and Bangladesh. Whereas Thailand and Nepal are similarly ranked for property registration in the ‘Doing Business Report’ published by the World Bank (Nepal is 24th and Thailand is 29th), Bangladesh is in 177th position (World Bank, 2013). These differences between cases provide an opportunity to analyse the role of land administration in contrasting situations. Also, the study of multiple cases will provide more information and draw more robust conclusion.

Chulachuli VDC of Ilam district is selected as a study area in Nepal. Ilam district is situated on the eastern border of Nepal. Administratively, Ilam is divided into one municipality and 48 VDCs. The total area of Chulachuli VDC is 77.82 square kilometres. It lies in the south- western part of Ilam and is bordered by Mahamai VDC to the east, Mahamai and Bajho VDCs to the north and Jhapa district to the west and south (Map 3-1).

70 Map 3-1: Map of Chulachuli VDC, Ilam, Nepal

Source: UNNIP2 (2014)

Land surveying in Nepal was initiated from the beginning of the 20th century. However, the systematic surveying and adjudication of land began only after the enactment of the Land (Survey and Measurement) Act, 1963 and was completed in 2000. However, there are still some informal settlement areas where land is yet to be formalised. The case of property formalisation in Chulachuli VDC is selected for study in this research as it was the only settlement recently formalised having a large population (around five thousand land owners). It is suitable for analysing the changes in land rights, land value, investment and income from land administration activities to answer the questions posed in this research. Cadastral surveying and land adjudication work in Chulachuli began in the 1970s. In the meantime, the government declared the creation of a green-belt in the Chulachuli area and planned to evacuate the settlement from BS3 2035 [1978/79]. The government

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United Nations Nepal International Platform 3

71 offered some areas of land in Prithvi Nagar, Kechana, Satasi and Jhiljhile of Jhapa and Pathari and in the Shanishchare area of Morang district. The tenants were offered up to one and a half bigha4 and the landowners were offered up to four bigha of land as compensation, but landowners with more than four bigha of land were offered cash compensation for the additional land above four bigha (CAISPSC, 2010). Sixteen commissions were formed up until 1990 to carry out the resettlement work but all efforts were in vain. The task of resettlement remained incomplete for several reasons. The problems identified by the government included (a) some households and tenants could not get compensation; (b) some households did not leave their land and resettle in another area; (c) some households disagreed with the amount of land offered as compensation; (d) some households got the compensation but did not evacuate the original land; (e) some households left their original land but could not get land in the proposed area as it was already occupied by someone else; (f) in the meantime, people coming from other parts of the region occupied some land in the proposed resettlement area and because of this the households which had evacuated their land in Chulachuli could not settle there; and (g) more people migrating from hilly districts occupied the government land in Chulachuli area (ibid). In this way, the problem of evacuation and resettlement became complex and a source of conflict with the government.

The policy of the government changed after the restoration of democracy in 1990. The democratic government abandoned the idea of creating a green-belt and began to restore the rights of the people to their original land. Seven commissions were formed between 1990 and 2007 but the problem was solved only after the formation of the 23rd commission called the Chulachuli Area Informal Settlement Problem Solving Committee (CAISPSC) in 2007. According to the progress report published by the committee, 5,152 people from Ward Numbers 1 to 8 have applied to register land, 4,918 of them were successful, 3,943 title certificates were prepared and 3,815 landowners had collected their certificates by mid-July, 2010 (CAISPSC, 2010).

4 _{A land measurement unit comprising 6,772.63 square meter in Nepal and 1,337.8 square meter in}

72 In Bangladesh, Gharinda Union of Tangail district is selected as a study area. Tangail is a district of the Dhaka Division and consists of 11 upazilas5, eight municipalities, 72 wards, 211 mahallas6, 103 union parishads7and 2,431 villages (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2011). Its area is 3,424 square kilometres. The selected study area is Suruj Village in Gharinda Union of Tangail Sadar Upazila (Map 3-2). The total number of household in the Gharinda Union was 5,867 and the total population was 28,315 according to the Population Census, 2001. The total number of households of Suruj village was 878 as per the information provided by the union office during the field study.

Map 3-2: Map of Bagladesh and Tangail sub-district showing the case study area

Source: Maps of Bangladesh (2014) (left); Islam (2014) (right)

The land tenure system of Bangladesh is mainly based on permanent settlement originated during the British period. Various Acts and Rules proclaimed during and after British rule shaped the rights to land of zamindars8 and tenants. Surveying settlement and revisional settlement operations are the processes for creating cadastral maps. As

5

A geopolitical subdivision of a district; a collection of mouzas

6 _{An optional and non-elective unit of a city or municipal corporation, for ritual and representative purposes} 7 _{A geopolitical subdivision of a sub-district}

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73 described by NORC (2009), these operations normally follow the process of systematic land titling or adjudication. It also states that surveying settlement (or land settlement) is the act of surveying and creating the initial cadastral map, and the revisional settlement is the activity of resurveying settled areas to reflect changes since settlement. The revisional settlement operations are done to update the existing cadastral records.

The process of land settlement or revisional settlement substantially follows typical practice for land settlement activities often known as systematic titling or systematic adjudication of titles in many countries. The surveying and settlement operations defined the rights and obligations of zamindars and raiyats9 according to the East Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885 (Hussain, 2012). This Act settled the general principles by which the relationship between landlord and tenant was regulated (Kabir, 1969:13).

Various settlement operations were carried in order to update the changes of land use and ownership. These operations were carried out sporadically at the beginning. The district-wide surveying and settlement operations were conducted in three different stages. As described by Hussain (2012), the first cycle began in 1888/89 and was completed with the settlement of Dinajpur district during 1934-40. The second cycle began with the settlement in Chittagong district in between 1923 and 1933. It was called a revisional settlement and was undertaken on the basis of cadastral maps and records. The state acquisition settlement operations were carried out after the proclamation of the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950. Another settlement operation was launched between 1965 and 1978.

A new phase of settlement operation called zonal settlement was commenced in 1984. As described by Hussain (2012), the operation was planned to be carried out in the entire country simultaneously with 22 district headquarters working as operational centres. According to him, ten zones were initially selected for operations but it was found to be difficult to run the programme even in ten districts due to the constraints of budget and technical manpower. The full phase operation was carried out only in five districts, namely, Comilla, Mymensingh, Tangail, Rangpur and Bogra. Tangail was selected

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74 randomly out of the five districts. After selection of the district, the sub-district, union and village were selected randomly using the lottery method.

The land administration system of Thailand, specifically the land titling programme, is selected for background study as it is considered to be one of the successful land titling programme, having positive economic impact. A twenty-year project was implemented throughout the country between 1985 and 2004. The main objectives of the land titling project were to provide secure land tenure to eligible landowners, develop the long term sustainability of the Department of Lands institutional capacity, improve land administration service delivery, and to develop an effective national property valuation function (World Bank, 2003). The progress of the land titling project and its effect on revenue generation and agricultural production is discussed using data collected from secondary sources.

The process of land registration in Thailand is also studied in this research. A Provincial Land Office in Nonthaburi province, Pak Kret was selected for observation after consultation with the officials of the Department of Lands. The map of Thailand highlighting Nonthaburi province is presented in Map 3-3.

75 Map 3-3: Map of Thailand showing Nonthaburi Province, Thailand

Source: Wikipedia (2014)

The structure of the individual case study reports is the same and contains two basic themes: economic impact of tenure security and the effectiveness of land administration services. The case study reports of Nepal and Bangladesh are presented in the same chapter in order to avoid duplication and to provide an opportunity to discuss issues thematically rather than on a country-by-country basis.