Alliance urges government to protect plantation families' land rights before investor leases

The Tamil Progressive Alliance has questioned why unused plantation land can be allocated to private investors while landless hill-country families continue waiting for land rights. Its leader, MP Mano Ganesan, has called on the government to explain the difference in treatment.

UPDATE: Ahead of the 2027 budget, alliance political-bureau member Barath Arullsamy called for the plantation-leasing decision to be paused until the housing and livelihood commitments in the Hatton Declaration are met. He said the declaration launched in October 2023 promised land rights, decent housing and the use of abandoned estate land to support unemployed young people.

Arullsamy contrasted those promises with the Cabinet's October 26 approval to lease 15 properties belonging to the Janatha Estates Development Board, Sri Lanka State Plantations Corporation and Elkaduwa Plantations to investors. He said the alliance welcomed private investment but wanted families' housing plots and young people's livelihood land protected with legal documents before commercial agreements proceeded.

He also pointed to delays in permanent resettlement for families affected by Cyclone Ditwah and in an Indian-funded housing programme. These were criticisms raised by the alliance, which says the government should first deliver the land and housing commitments on which plantation communities had relied.