A committee appointed by President Ranil Wickremesinghe will coordinate the allocation of public land to members of the Sri Lankan military.
The Land Commissioner had mentioned in meetings with government officials that the lands allocated for former members of Sri Lanka’s military needed to be more adequate.
Acting on this Wickremesinghe proposed a cabinet paper to revise the methodology for granting lands to former members of Sri Lanka’s military. This includes the appointment of a committee comprising President’s Secretary Saman Ekanayake, the land commissioner, the Chairman of the Ranaviru Seva Authority, and the attorney general.
The mandate of the committee is to provide land to tri-forces, police, and civil defense personnel who are still on active duty, retired, disabled. The move comes at a time when large swathes of land are occupied by the military in the North-East. There have been instances of increased militarization with the government and military trying to occupy more lands since the start of this year.
Land grabs by the security forces for the expansion of military bases are common despite the armed conflict ending 15 years ago.
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