Industries lost in the land shuffle
The government is planning to simplify land allocation, to attract potential businesses and industries with the help of the Land Registry Commission and related agencies, a deputy minister said.
“We will bring the available land in the country into one particular registry and will have a particular policy to allocate to them,” Finance and Planning Deputy Minister Dr. Anil Jayantha Fernando told the Sunday Times Business.
Different state agencies are in a dilemma at present to attract businesses due to the lack of availability of land, as well as the red tape in securing it.
The Industrial Development Board (IDB), under the Ministry of Enterprise Development, with more than 260 small and medium-sized business projects in hand, is seeking land for these businesses to be set up.
“Almost all of these projects came to the IDB last year. We have had meetings with several related agencies to look for land for these projects, but so far, we have not been successful,” IDB Chairman Ravi Nissanka told the Sunday Times Business. He said that these projects have investment in business ideas and technology, and are looking for land from the IDB to rent out for the projects. He said the IDB will lease land to these industrialists and facilitate all other amenities such as electricity, water, waste management etc. The IDB gets its income from the Industrial Estate Management Division.
IDB has lands in Dodangoda, Elpitiya, and Weerakeitya, which total around 105 acres.
According to a ministry official, there is a high demand for the Western province to set up industries. He said that in the Homagama industrial zone, about 30 industries have sent proposals to the Western Province to set up businesses.
Meanwhile, early this year, the Ministry of Industries and Entrepreneurship Development was undertaking a land inventory to identify and release vacant slots for potential public-private partnership investments, an initiative aiming to allocate these lands to key sectors such as tourism, automobile component development, and agriculture.
About 40 per cent of this registry is completed. Sri Lanka’s land tenure system is divided into two main classifications: state control and private ownership. A significant amount of land, including forests, waste areas, and unoccupied plots, falls under state control, which is managed by government officials at various administrative levels—national, provincial, district, and divisional. The ministry is actively coordinating with all District Secretariats to gather information on available lands suitable for industrial use and vacant lots, the official added.
Following the completion of the inventory, the ministry plans to solicit expressions of interest from potential investors regarding these lands.
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