The Hon. (Prof.) A.H.M.H. Abayarathna - Minister of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government
No formal disclosure has been made on the criteria for creating new local authorities or Divisional Secretaries’ divisions, but previous delimitation processes considered population, area, urban or rural character, topography and environmental factors. The Minister stated that the Government intends to consider public requests and current needs, and that an expert committee has proposed criteria including population and housing density, service and infrastructure capacity, commercial and industrial distribution, employment and self-generated income, based on the 1999 Local Government Reforms report. He added that Cabinet approved these criteria in 2017 and that ethnic or political considerations are not used in establishing or upgrading local authorities.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 WRITTEN ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
¶ 02 CREATION OF NEW LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND DIVISIONAL SECRETARIES' DIVISIONS: CRITERIA ADOPTED
¶ 03 610/2025
¶ 04 (a) (i) No such disclosure has been made.
¶ 05 (ii) At previous Delimitation Committees, population and area had been the main criteria considered and urbanism, rurality, topography and environmental factors as well had been considered. It is the expectation of the Government to select the proper criteria by paying attention to the requests, suggestions and proposals of the public and the timely important factors.
¶ 06 (iii) The factors specified under (ii) above are expected to be considered as the criteria.
¶ 07 (iv) An expert committee consisting of 12 members has been appointed to formulate an accepted methodology on establishment of new local authorities and upgrading of existing local authorities and the following criteria have been prepared and presented by the said expert committee for establishment of new local authorities and upgrading of existing local authorities, considering the recommendations of the Report (Session Report No. 1 of 1999) of the Commission of Inquiry on Local Government Reforms published in year 1999.
¶ 08 1. Population and density 2. Housing and density 3. Improvement in supply of services and infrastructure facilities 4. Distribution of commercial and industrial factories 5. Employment 6. Self-generating income of the proposed authority area
¶ 09 A Cabinet Memorandum by No. CP/2017/22 dated 06.07.2017 had been submitted for obtaining approval of the Cabinet of Ministers for the above criteria and it had been notified through Notification of Cabinet Decisions No. Amap/17/1521/744/015 dated 02.08.2017 that approval therefor had been received at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers held on 25.07.2017.
¶ 10 Accordingly, the activities of establishment and upgrading of local authorities are carried out based on the above criteria and it is kindly informed that neither ethnic nor political matters are made relevant therefor.
¶ 11 (b) Not Relevant.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Wednesday, 12 March 2025 ·No. 1744106534050382 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. (Prof.) A.H.M.H. Abayarathna - Minister of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 12 March 2025. No. 1744106534050382. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/9576