Land Bill next year
The draft Land Bill on establishing a land bank under the Ministry of Lands is now being perused by the Legal Draftsman and will be presented to Parliament early next year, Tourism, Christian Religious Affairs and Lands MinisterJohn Amaratunga said.
He told the Business Times that this Bill will primarily promote outright titles to land owners with conditional deeds while curbing property related fraud. “This Bill intends to bring together all state lands that are now under different state departments under one common platform,” he said.
According to him, ‘proper’ titles to those who hold deeds such as Jayabhoomi and Swarnabhoomi will also be mooted through this Bill. The Land Ministry’s idea is to digitise its land bank funded by the Korean government and this will be possible after the Bill comes into effect, he said.
The main reasons cited for this digitisation effort are to detect and prevent fraud and to improve data analytics while streamlining processes in the ministry, he added saying that digitization will help the registers against ageing, excessive handling, and damages by termites and even by natural disasters.
Currently there are 43 land registries across the country and it is estimated that over 20 million deeds have been stored in those registries, according to data by the ministry officials. Lawyers and Notaries are finding it difficult to find land related information due to the problem of reading registers and lack of space in land registries in general, they said, adding that the low access of registers for investigating deeds at the Land Registry has caused major issues which have called for this digitization process. It will also pave a way towards automation of Land Registries by computerizing deed registration system and facilitating amalgamation of Title Registration and Deed Registration in the long term, Mr. Amaratunga said.