28 families living under bridge for 20 years still waiting for proper housing

Dal Bahadur Bohora has been living under the Banahara bridge on the East-West Highway in Shuklaphanta Municipality-11 for the past 20 years. Originally from Alital in Dadeldhura, Bohora lost his home and farmland to a landslide in 2005 and has been sheltering under the bridge since.

“I don’t have any property. Sometimes I find work, sometimes I don’t,” he said. “It’s been 20 years living like this.”

He’s not alone. A total of 28 families are living under the same bridge. They have built temporary shelters using tents near the Banahara river. To avoid the risk of flooding, they’ve settled on slightly higher ground next to the road.

“Winter is manageable, but the monsoon is very difficult,” Bohora said. “We’re always afraid of the floods, so we live in fear, along with the threat of wild animals and snakes.”

Despite political changes in the country, Bohora says the government has done nothing to provide them with safe housing. “People say Singha Durbar (the central government) has reached every village, but we haven’t felt it,” he added.

Laxman Bista, another squatter living beside the highway, shared similar frustration. “Government officials pass by in their vehicles every day, but nobody cares about our pain,” he said. “We go to the ward office and municipality asking for help, but no one listens. We just want safe shelter so we can work and feed our families.”

Most of the squatters here rely on daily wage labor to survive. But recently, even that has become hard to find. “I went to India for work when I was 17, but I didn’t have any skills. So I came back,” said Prem Bahadur Saud, who spent 13 years working in India. “Now, I can’t even find work here, and it’s hard to feed my family.”

Many of these families say that even after two decades living near dense forest and the bridge, the government has shown no interest in relocating them to safer land. Tularam Bohora, who has also been living here for 20 years, said he still holds on to hope for a permanent home.

“Politicians come during elections and promise safe housing, but they disappear after that,” he said. “The children here don’t even go to school.”

Though the government says education is free up to secondary level, parents say they can’t afford the extra fees schools ask for. As a result, many children from these families are deprived of education.

The Shuklaphanta Municipality has given them land ownership certificates (nissa), but it has not provided any land for housing yet.