News
New move to settle land disputes in North, East
Sri Lankans domiciled overseas will be provided assistance to reclaim their land encroached by squatters or provided with alternative land under a new scheme drawn up by the Government. The scheme will mainly apply to the Northern and Eastern provinces from where a staggering 140,000 complaints of land disputes have been reported to the Lands Ministry in the past three years, Lands Ministry’s Additional Secretary S.D.A.B. Boralessa said.
“The first option will be to help them to get the original land. But if that fails they will be given alternative land in the same AGA (Assistant Government Agent’s) division”, he said. The official said most of the complaints received from the Northern Province were cases of encroachment and the sale of land to third parties using forged documents.
Mr. Boralessa said persons who had found that their lands had been encroached or having land-related disputes could lodge their complaints at the AGA office which will act under the guidance of the Lands Ministry. He said the scheme to help persons overseas to reclaim their original lands would also help the Government to reduce the cases of land fraud. In some of the cases the LTTE had distributed lands to its sympathisers or families of their cadres.
“Only some of these lands encroached can be taken back as some of them have been developed and re-distributed among family members,” Mr. Boralessa explained. He said another issue in the north and east was that persons had lost the documents due to displacement.
These moves come ahead of the Government’s decision to appoint a ‘Land Commission’ to draw up a new land policy. This would be the fourth such commission in the country’s history with the last being appointed in 1985.