“12,500 youth to get ‘unused’ plantation lands”
Referring to an article under the caption “12,500 youth to get ‘unused’ plantation lands” appearing in the Business Times of Sunday the 5th of May 2013, the Planters’ Association of Ceylon (PA) wishes to make the following clarification.
The distribution of unutilised plantation lands to unemployed youth was a proposal made in the 2012 National Budget presented in November 2011 and duly approved.
Thereafter at the request of the Minister of Plantation Industries, the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) have co-operated with ministry officials who visited estates for the purpose of identifying such lands.
The PA was also represented on a Committee chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of Plantation Industries to formulate eligibility criteria and modalities for implementation which when finalised, were presented to Dr. P. B. Jayasundera, Secretary to the Treasury.
While the details of lands so identified for distribution have yet to be made known, the Minister of Plantation Industries who chaired the Golden Shareholder’s meeting briefed the RPCs of what transpired at a meeting of Senior Government Officials at the Treasury in this connection and undertook to forward the relevant particulars shortly.
Business Editor’s note: We stand by our story and the comments made by the PA Chairman Lalith Obeysekera. In the meantime, the Economic Development Ministry confirmed the story about the distribution of this land to 12,500 youths in a statement issued on Tuesday. Interestingly the Ministry statement has extracted in verbatim parts of the Business Times report including a word that erroneously crept in. That extract reads as … “The identified land will be re-allocated to achieve impact improved production and higher productivity levels in the plantations industry in the long term, a senior Finance Ministry official disclosed”. The unnecessary word was ‘impact’ which officials let go in the media release.
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