The Hon. Major General (Rtd.) Aruna Jayasekera - Deputy Minister of Defence
The Deputy Minister said the Navy has released 829 acres of land in the area since 2012 while retaining about 245 acres for Western Naval Command operations, and has provided access, transport, and preschool support for local religious and school communities. He stated that no civilians had been displaced by the Navy and that discussions had already been held with the Divisional Secretary and local representatives. He added that, following instructions from the President, he would visit the area with Ministry officials and consider releasing the maximum possible additional land.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Member, as I stated, within the naval base area there is a Roman Catholic church and a Roman Catholic Tamil mixed school. About 77 acres have been released to ensure access, including access roads. The Navy provides free transport for devotees and schoolchildren and runs a preschool for Sinhala and Tamil children via the Navy Seva Vanitha Unit, employing two teachers paid by the Navy. No civilians have been removed or allowed to be displaced by the Navy.
¶ 02 As mentioned, the Navy released 752 acres between 2012 and 2015 and 77 acres in 2017—a total of 829 acres—retaining about 245 acres for the Western Naval Command Headquarters and essential operations. I will visit next Monday with Ministry officials to meet you.
¶ 03 We have already discussed this with the Divisional Secretary and local representatives—about four meetings were held in my office. At the last Consultative Committee, when you raised this, His Excellency the President also instructed me to engage and resolve. The Navy Commander visited about three weeks ago. We will consider this fully with a view to releasing the maximum possible land.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 22 May 2026 ·No. 23666 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/16891
Cite as: The Hon. Major General (Rtd.) Aruna Jayasekera - Deputy Minister of Defence. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 22 May 2026. No. 23666. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/16891