The Hon. Sivagnanam Shritharan
Hon. Sivagnanam Shritharan raised a question under Standing Order 27(2) regarding the 2020 Gazette declaring areas under 13 Pradeshiya Sabhas in Jaffna District as Urban Development Areas under the Urban Development Authority Law. He asked whether the Minister was aware that this transfer of regulatory functions to the UDA had affected local authority powers and imposed UDA fees for permits and approvals, causing inconvenience to residents. He also questioned the impact on village livelihoods, particularly small and medium cottage industries being treated as commercial enterprises requiring additional permissions.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, thank you for permitting me under Standing Order 27(2) to question the Minister of Urban Development, Construction and Housing, Hon. Anura Karunathilaka.
¶ 02 Is the Minister aware that by Gazette Extraordinary No. 2185/74 of 24.07.2020 under the Urban Development Authority Law, all areas under the administrative control of the 13 Pradeshiya Sabhas out of 17 Local Authorities in Jaffna District were declared Urban Development Areas?
¶ 03 1. Is he aware that this places Pradeshiya Sabha powers under the Urban Development Authority (UDA), with fees for building permits, survey plan approvals, land subdivision, street line certificates, and one-stop coordination being determined by the UDA, causing severe inconvenience to the public?
¶ 04 2. In villages with local economies, small and medium cottage industries undertaken by people for livelihood are being converted into commercial enterprises requiring permissions, thereby causing hardships to ordinary people. Will the Hon. Minister inform this House of the nature of those hardships?
Provenance
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- Hansard, Wednesday, 6 August 2025 ·No. 1755159820030645 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Sivagnanam Shritharan. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 6 August 2025. No. 1755159820030645. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/17108