News
Issuance of freehold titles could lead to unforseen crisis, warns PHU leader
Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) leader Udaya Gammanpila, MP, yesterday (06) alleged that the decision to issue freehold titles to farmers could cause a catastrophic situation.
Declaring that President Ranil Wickremesinghe had launched the first phase of the Urumaya programme with an eye to the presidential polls, the former Power and Energy Minister asked whether the government was prepared to face a fresh crisis as a large number of farmers mortgaged their land because of wide scale poverty/indebtedness among them.
Addressing the media at the PHU office, at Pita Kotte, lawmaker Gammanpila emphasised that the previous government had refrained from issuing freehold titles.
MP Gammanpila said that a vast majority of politicians wouldn’t dare to criticise the incumbent government over this highly irresponsible move as they feared farmers would turn against them. The ex-Minister said that whatever the consequences he wouldn’t hesitate to warn the country and the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government of the danger of issuance of freehold titles to farmers.
Gammanpila told The Island that the possibility of influential companies, both local and foreign, seeking to exploit the farmers’ situation couldn’t be ruled out.
MP Gammanpila said that a significant number of farmers could lose their land overnight and end up in towns.
President Wickremesinghe announced the plan to issue freehold titles in his Budget 2024. (SF)
The Railways Department yesterday (29) announced the restoration of services on the Puttalam line. The Department said that train services between Colombo Fort and Chilaw that had been disrupted, following damages caused by Cyclone Ditwah, had resumed. Cyclone Ditwah hit Sri Lanka on 27 Nov.
The section of the railway track, near the Kadupitiya Oya Bridge, located between Kudawewa and Madampe railway stations, was washed away by floods caused by Cyclone Ditwah.
The Navy has seized 43 fishing boats, along with 343 fishers, this year, for poaching in Sri Lankan waters. The last interception was made south of the Delft Island, Jaffna, on 27 December.
The boat and three fishermen taken into custody were brought to the Kareinagar Jetty and handed over to the Fisheries Inspector of Jaffna for legal action.
The Central Bank has imposed ‘administrative penalties’ on several financial institutions, including two banks, for non-compliance with the provisions of the FTRA (Financial Transactions Reporting Act, No. 6 of 2006)
The Bank stated: “In terms of the FTRA, the penalty may be prescribed by taking into consideration the nature and gravity of relevant non-compliances of the Institutions. Accordingly, as Sri Lanka’s regulator for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), the Financial Intelligence Unit
(FIU) collected penalties as indicated below, amounting to Nine Million and Five Hundred Thousand Rupees (Rs. 9,500,000) in total, from July to September 2025, to enforce compliance of the Institutions. The money collected as penalties was credited to the Consolidated Fund.”
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Colombo-Puttalam railway line restored
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