State officials directed to suspend illegal land deals

Prime Minister D M Jayaratne directed state officials to suspend the sale of state land to the Private Sector through undue means.

He issued this directive when he presided over the Doluwa Development Committee meeting held at the Doluwa Divisional Secretariat auditorium recently.

The Prime Minister who said that an instance where a 10 acre plot of land in Haloya in Gampola is to be sold to the private sector through unscrupulous means had been brought to his notice added that he would bring this matter to the notice of the President immediately.

He alleged that certain state institutions were taking the lead in these surreptitious deals.

The government policy was to provide low income families with small plots of land to build a house of their own. Instead of doing this the sale of large slices of land to the private sector on the sly was a grave crime which should not go unpunished. He said the time had come to make a reappraisal of the success of the land alienation programme launched by late Agriculture Minister Hector Kobbekaduwa.

Ven Wetakepotha Chandananda Thera, Provincial Council Member Nissanka Herath, Prime Ministers Private Secretary Anuradha Jayaratne, Udapalathe Pradeshiya Sabha Chairman D G Gunasena and Doluwa DS Palitha Bandara were among other officials who attended the meeting.