Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2021-02-01

Providing lands in the Mahaveli regions on lease basis for commercial agriculture

- The Government has taken measures to restrict the importation of identified food crops that could be cultivated within the country with a view to controlling unnecessary foreign exchange outflow. Accordingly, the importation of maize has been suspended and approximately 250,000 metric tons of maize required for the production of Thriposha and other animal food has to be produced domestically. In this context, it has been planned to provide underutilized 2,750 acres of Rambukkanoya area managed by the Sri Lanka Mahaweli Authority not belonging to the identified reservations, to the local agricultural investors on lease basis in view of encouraging them to produce maize in large scale domestically. Accordingly, the proposal made by the Minister of Irrigation to allocate the relevant blocks of land to the recognized local investors on lease basis for a period of one (01) year and to grant the relevant land blocks to the same investors on long - term lease basis as per the provisions of the State Land Ordinance upon the success of the cultivation in future, was approved by the Cabinet.