Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-11-07

Use of underutilized Lands for Housing and Human Settlement Development

- It has been observed that certain challenges have surfaced in the use of underutilized lands for development activities as a result of the regulations imposed by the Government for the prevention of paddy lands, other agricultural lands and forest reserves being used for other purposes. When lands are used for human settlement development, specially, in rapidly urbanizing areas and if the name of a portion of land ends with the terms 'Wela', 'Kumbura', or 'Deniya' in a survey plan, it has been found difficult to use such lands for housing construction although the lands cannot actually be used for cultivation. As such, the Cabinet has already appointed a Committee to formulate an expeditious methodology and make recommendations with regard to releasing of underutilized lands for development purposes.

The joint proposal made by Hon. Duminda Dissanayake, the Minister of Agriculture and Hon. Sajith Premadasa, the Minister of Housing and Construction, to appoint a special team of officers from the Head Office of the Agrarian Development Department to accord priority and take action to carry out field inspections expeditiously with the officers of the relevant institutions, when such underutilized lands have to be used for housing construction and subsequently grant the approval required, in accordance with the recommendations of the Officials' Committee, was approved by the Cabinet.