The Hon. Namal Karunaratne - Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Livestock
On behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, the Deputy Minister answered a question on approvals to fill or use paddy lands for other purposes in the Anuradhapura District. He stated that no such approvals were granted in 2024, while in 2025 approvals were issued under the Agrarian Development Act for five applications, including construction of business premises, covering a total of 33 perches. He said copies of the Commissioner General’s approval letters were tabled, and that the remaining part of the question was not applicable.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, I provide the following answer.
¶ 02 Question: Paddy Lands Granted with Approval for Filling: Anuradhapura District (1243/2025)
¶ 03 (a) (i) For 2024, no approvals were granted by the Department of Agrarian Development to fill paddy lands in the Anuradhapura District. For 2025, in accordance with the Agrarian Development Act, No. 46 of 2000 as amended by Act No. 46 of 2011, information on lands permitted to be used for purposes other than paddy cultivation is as follows:
¶ 04 - N.W.R. Pushpa Kumara (File 7/11/AN/105): Perches 162 – approval granted - S. Athula Janaka Kumarasiri (File 7/11/AN/104): Approval for construction of a business premises - M.S. Fathima Basira (File 7/11/14&14/106): Approval for construction of a business premises - M.S.M. Nasurdeen (File 7/11/14/107): Approval for construction of a business premises - M.S. Fathima Taslima (File 7/11/17108): Approval for construction of a business premises
¶ 05 Total extent: 33.0 perches
¶ 06 (ii) Yes. Copies of the letters issued under the signature of the Commissioner General are annexed and tabled.
¶ 07 (b) Not applicable.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Thursday, 5 February 2026 ·No. 23269 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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Cite as: The Hon. Namal Karunaratne - Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Livestock. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 5 February 2026. No. 23269. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/12930