Sri Lanka government is reviewing existing laws on state-owned lands in the extent of 82 per cent of available land to broad-base ownership
Necessary amendments are being made following consolidations with relevant parties to Land Grants (Special Provisions) bill which had to be withdrawn from Parliament order books on August 21.
The new bill aimed to provide land deeds to 2.5 million Sri Lankans has not been presented in Parliament due to opposition protests and legal actions instigated in Courts.
Another objective is to provide ownership of lands for those who are living on state lands through legal means for more than 10 years.
The bill covers lands granted under the provisions of the Land Development Ordinance, lands disposed under the provisions of the Land Grant (Special Provisions) Act or lands provided under the Crown Lands Ordinance.
Land accessibility, land disputes and the lack of a proper land management system are the current impediments for potential industrialists setting up new business ventures in the island, a senior official of the Finance Ministry told the Business Times.
The other main issue was that 60 per cent of private-owned lands have been mortgaged to banks and finance companies as collateral for massive loans.
At present Sri Lanka has no proper national land inventory, not even on state-owned lands, he said adding that this situation makes land administration more difficult.
The Government will have to enact this legislation that will permit the conversion of state land permits and grants to unconditional land grants given for the use of people to marketable and bankable title deeds.
It provides provisions to set up an authority that gathers information on state lands and facilitates investment in underutilised state land.
In this context, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) land project addresses the weaknesses in land administration using US$ 67 million of the total grant of $480 million.
Under the MCC project, $23 million has been allocated to create a parcel fabric map (a basic geographically-based cadastral map of land parcels) and complete inventory of state lands.
Data thus provided will be entered into the government’s e-State Lands Information Management System (Eslims).
(LI)