Archives

The Land and Irrigation Ministry plans to develop under-utilised Government and private land and launch an islandwide program to encourage agriculture and farming projects, says Deputy Minister of Lands and Irrigation, Bimal Ratnayake.

The Government will make more effective use of land resources and not allow the misuse of land that took place under the former Government. Most of the people who have encroached on State land are politically influential people and although laws that restrict land ownership still exist, the ministry has found that there are people who own many hundreds or thousands of acres of land while most farmers have less than one acre, he told the Daily news in an interview.

The Ministry is inundated with work on land disputes. The Minister said that when the new Government took office it found that the previous Government's land title registration project, with $5 million in World Bank funding aimed at giving a registration certificate to each landowner in this country, had used Rs. 363 million but given only 394 titles. Rs. 183 million had been spent as consultancy services fees alone till April, Ratnayake said.
Excerpts from the interview

by Chandani Jayatilleke

Question: What have you identified as your priorities in the Land and Irrigation Ministry?

Answer: We identified four key areas in the Lands Ministry soon after we took over the Ministry.

The first was a burning issue. The former Government had eased the laws enabling foreigners to purchase land in this country and a large number of foreigners had already made use of this opportunity to buy land in prime areas in Sri Lanka. It is an alarming situation and we immediately put a stop to this.

Next is the preparation of a land policy, which aligns with the national economic policy. The present policy focuses on the development of a few cities and lures people to throng cities leaving villages. Ours is a different policy and we need to expand development activities throughout the country without restricting everything to the Western Province.

Therefore, we need a proper land policy which satisfies our economic needs. Currently, we are in the process of drafting a land policy.

Third is the distribution of land among the poor and the middle class people, the disabled and those who are working in armed forces and police, in a methodical manner. Land should be given to those who deserve it at a concessionary rate - without any political influence. We are currently working on this issue.

Fourth is the resolving of issues related to land disputes - proper titles, handing over of properties from fathers to sons without proper deeds.

Sixty percent of the issues we handle in this Ministry on public days are related to land disputes although this Ministry has three other large areas to deal with.

Therefore, to solve these issues we have proposed to have mobile services in villages. Already we have conducted mobile services in Rajanganaya, Minipe, Hasalaka, Thamankaduwa, Siyambalanduwa, Lunugamvehera, Medirigiriya, Lankapura, Galenbindunuwewa and Kantale. We are in the process of clearing the backlog, at present.

Another setback we have is that the Lands Ministry doesn't have a network or a mechanism which spreads to the Regional Secretariat level to attend to these issues. At present the Divisional Secretaries have to attend to these issues as well. In fact, this is a large area and Divisional Secretaries alone cannot handle this task.

Therefore, we have decided to set up a separate unit to handle issues at village level in the future. We are hoping to recruit 400 graduates as land officers who could bring in solutions to land dispute matters while based in these areas. What happens at present is people from Dehiattakandiya or Rajanganaya will have to come to Colombo to get their issues sorted out. And it's a cumbersome process.

Question: Large number of foreigners had purchased land in Sri Lanka after the previous Government relaxed the laws. What is the gravity of the problem? Can a tax be imposed on foreigners who have already purchased land?

Answer: During the previous Government newspapers in Hong Kong carried advertisements and articles with photographs saying 'you can buy a land in a paradise for six months salary' as the UNF Government relaxed the land purchasing policy for foreigners.

As a result many foreigners purchased land in the areas of Beruwala, Galle, Galle Fort area and Tangalle. They have purchased land particularly in the South, but we're still doing an investigation to ascertain the areas where foreigners have purchased land. We want to find out whether the foreigners have purchased land in the areas where there are marsh lands and wetlands - we cannot allow that to happen. This is a complicated issue and we are hoping to complete the investigation within this month. After that, we will decide what action has to be taken in this regard.

Question: What will be the Ministry's stand on foreign investors?

Answer: There is a Government policy to lease Government lands to foreign investors. But, we have found that some foreigners arrive in this country without a single dollar, saying they would invest money in different projects and submitting attractive project reports - when they come here, they mortgage the land to a financial institution and take money instead of investing their own money.

Also on many occasions, we have found that they have even cut and sold valuable trees in these lands to timber merchants. For instance, Siyambalanduwa Plantations - investors have taken the land saying that they were to start an agriculture project, and have cut about 7,000 trees. We need to put a stop to bogus investors coming into the country and welcome genuine industries.

Therefore a proper land policy is a must. In the future, our aim is to lease out land to foreigners (investors) with a set of concessions and a set of regulations, depending on the nature of their industry, investment capacity and their strength. The investors also should reasonably contribute to the economy in the country, as they make profits which they take away.

Question: You've been emphasising the need for Land policy. But, didn't the previous Government take initiatives to prepare a Land Policy?

Answer: After we took office we met a team of representatives from the World Bank. Apparently, the previous Government had assigned this team to prepare the Lands Policy for Sri Lanka.

The consultant who was in-charge of this project is a consultant to the World Bank (WB). Funnily, he had also worked as a consultant to this Ministry. The UNF Government has got a WB consultant to work as the consultant to the land policy preparation unit. Therefore, we can assume the policy has been made to satisfy WB requirements, not what we really need.

The policy they had concluded is in favour of foreigners and not our farmers. The WB team we met proposed that we implement this policy and the land title registration project. We need a land policy which is productive, effective and sustainable. The WB also stated that their interest is also in such a plan. But we should have the right to decide on the policy and the WB had to agree with us.

We have already taken preliminary measures to prepare a land policy, and appointed a national committee comprising senior officials in the field. The committee headed by the Ministry Secretary has already met three times and we are planning to present this to Parliament in three months. We will ensure that this land policy will satisfy the country's requirements and its economic policies.

Question: People have encroached on Government land in various parts of the country? How do you plan to tackle this problem?

Answer: A major cause of this is that we don't have a land utilisation policy. Because of this, we have given the best coconut lands to set up large-scale industries and industrial zones. For instance, the previous government had given a 154-acre land of coconut in Makandura for an industrial park. It was stopped due to the protests launched by people in the area.

We are aware that there are so many poor people who have encroached on areas such as railway lines, irrigation sites, canal-banks. But they are not the real problem. The real problem is the large areas of land taken by various persons who are politically or otherwise influential. Such influential people have done over 75% of the encroaching.

One of the solutions we could consider, as far as the poor is concerned is to provide them land on a concessionary basis.

In developed countries where there are proper land policies, the governments and the experts decide the areas, which are suitable for residence, agriculture and forests and they stick to these plans. No agriculture land is given for residences or industries.

We need to legalise the land utilisation policy - we have a sort of policy already. In the future, we plan to legalise the whole system so that politically influential people will not be able to acquire land by wrong methods.

Question: What about the 50-acre only policy?

Answer: The 50-acre law is still there, but not effectively implemented. There is a large group of people who own many hundreds or thousands of acres of land. But most of the farmers have less than an acre.

Another problem is most of the prosperous lands and estates that are owned by the private sector and the State sector have not been developed in a proper manner. They have blocked a large number of acres of lands, but not cultivated them.

To get over this situation, we have decided to launch a project to encourage these landowners to go for cultivation. But if they still do not take any interest in developing the land, we would have to consider further measures.

Question: Many farmers do not own sufficient lands for farming? They are shying away from farming due to this reason. What is the Government's plan to support such farmers to get back to farming?/ or What is the Government's plan to support farmers who abandon their land because they are not big enough to make cultivation economically viable and encourage them to resume farming?

Answer: It is unfortunate that about 70% of the farmers own less than one acre. This is one reason why we have decided to launch a 10,000-irrigation tank development project. We have realised that through a proper irrigation system, we could find a large number of under-developed lands as new farming areas. Our aim here is to support as many farmers as possible to resume farming, by providing them water for farming.

Water is one of the major issues for many farmers. Although there are a large number of rivers and irrigation systems in many areas, they are in a dilapidated state. So we need to revive this system and we have decided to revive 10,000 irrigation systems under a special project.

This project has already been launched and 1,000 irrigation systems will be completed by November this year. We have a national committee and district committees, regional level officers and farmer organisations effectively implementing this project.

We are spending Rs. 400 million for the first 1,000 irrigation systems and the Cabinet has approved the project and has allocated Rs. 200 million. We will also use funds from the Ministry. At the same time, we are planning to ask the business community and other donors to raise the balance funds. India-Sri Lanka Foundation has already volunteered to build one tank.

Our intention is to encourage at least 10 acres of new farming from each irrigation project, totalling 10,000 acres of new farming area throughout the country - in the first stage.

Question: People are filling up land including marsh lands and paddy fields in various areas on a large scale. What's the Ministry's policy on this?

Answer: The filling of lands, marsh lands and paddy fields was a result of the degradation of the farming community in Sri Lanka by former Governments. Many farmers almost gave up farming and some businessmen took advantage of this situation and started filling and selling land. It has become a large-scale business today.

We have taken measures to terminate these wrong doings. We will take legal action against such persons. Here, we are not talking about the poor who would want to build a house in a paddy land which is his only resource.

Question: The previous Government launched a land title registration project. What will be the future of this program?

Answer: This project aimed at giving a registration certificate to each landowner in this country. It's a good thing. But the former Government started this as a special project and the WB gave a US$ 5 million (Rs. 500 m) loan. Sri Lanka Government provided another Rs. 176 million, bringing the total to Rs. 676 million.

It was to be started through a pilot project and expanded throughout the country. But when we took office, the UNF Government had spent Rs. 363 million. But only 394 titles had been given. The previous government's land title registration program is a total failure. There are seven consultants working on this project drawing salaries of over Rs. 50,000. The project had spent Rs. 183 million as consultancy services fees alone till April.

We have suggested to the WB that we need a proper mechanism to do this project and we do not want all these consultants who would consume a large portion of funds. We have already sent our project proposal to the WB.

Question: What is the Government's policy on the controversial proposals to privatise water supplies.

Answer: We are a country with a long history in efficient water management and irrigation systems. We need not have any water privatisation programs. We can set our own water management policy. We have a committee on this and the first meeting was held on June 24. We plan to complete the report on water management policy within four months and present it to Parliament. There will be no privatisation of water nor will there be taxes.

The former government has taken a loan of US$ 6 million from the ADB to prepare a water policy. And they had made a report, proposing the privatisation of water (he shows us a report). But, we do not intend to waste a large sum of money doing the water policy. We have an excellent team of experts who are dedicated and who accepted the challenge to complete an effective water management policy report on time.

www.ceylincoproperties.com

www.Pathmaconstruction.com

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries

Produced by Lake House
Copyright © 2003 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager