The Hon. (Dr.) Susil Ranasinghe
Most Mahaweli reservations have already been gazetted, but many Irrigation Department reservoir reservations remain ungazetted due to legal ambiguities that are being addressed. The Minister stated that authorities intend to identify and act against occupations or cultivation within reservations, including houses, hotels, swimming pools, and large-scale cultivations allegedly linked to politicians or proxies. He affirmed readiness to investigate such encroachments and protect reservoir reservations under the relevant legal framework.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Most Mahaweli reservations are already gazetted. Under the Irrigation Ordinance, the Director General has powers, but many Department reservoirs are not gazetted due to legal ambiguities and issues we are working to resolve. We intend to act: identify those occupying or cultivating within reservations, and take measures. Many such occupations—houses, hotels, swimming pools, even 20–30 acre cultivations—have been pursued by politicians or their proxies. We are ready to investigate and protect reservoir reservations.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 20 May 2025 ·No. 1749010823009957 ·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/25801
Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Susil Ranasinghe. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 20 May 2025. No. 1749010823009957. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/25801