Cabinet approval has been granted to provide tax concessions for lands provided on a long term lease basis for agricultural purposes.
A Cabinet Paper presented by Lands and Parliamentary Reforms Minister Gayantha Karunathilake proposed that in order to promote agriculture, it was necessary that lease concessions for such land.
At present, when lands are requested for agricultural projects, if the proposed agricultural project has commercial objectives, the normal procedure is to alienate lands on a commercial basis.
Thus the new lease concession system below proposes that tax concessions be directly given on the basis of agriculture.
The following was approved in terms of concessions:
Suspend the recovery of the premium calculated as equal to triple of the annual lease recovered once and for all, when alienation is made under the State Land Ordinance No 8 of 1947.
Calculate the lease revision by addition of 20 percent to the lease of the previous year, instead of the present revision of 50 percent affected once in five years.
Calculate the initial lease of the second lease period by addition of 20 percent to the lease charged at the end of the lease period in case of extending the lease period upon completion of the first lease period.
Reduce the annual lease rate from 4 percent to 2 percent effective from the date of receiving the approval of the former Minister to alienate the lands on the long term lease, when the assessed value of the land is less than Rs.5,000,000.
The Progress Review Meeting of Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment was held under the patronage of President Maithripala Sirisena.
The Progress Review Meeting to examine the progress of the projects and of future development plans conducted under the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment was held under the patronage of the President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday at the Mahaweli Development Ministry Auditorium.
Detailed discussions were held regarding the special development plans conducted under Ministry of Mahaweli Development where President Sirisena stressed on the importance of improving the efficiency and regularising the projects towards providing quick benefits to the Mahaweli farmer community.
The President also emphasised the importance of conducting proper studies on possible dry weather conditions in the future and plan management of water levels of reservoirs accordingly and inform the farmers to manage their cultivations in the future on the basis of such forecasts. He instructed the officials to launch such awareness campaigns through farmer organizations.
The attention was also drawn on the construction of Wayamba Cannel and the upper Elahara Canal projects and instructions were given to speed up the construction works at Madirigiya, Bisopura village under the Moragahakanda Project and distribution of lands to the displaced persons expeditiously.
President Sirisena advised the officials to construct a programme to transfer the buildings that belong to Ministry of Mahaweli Development, which are not in use to the health and education fields under a proper procedure immediately.
Minister of Fisheries and Water Resources, State Minister of Mahaweli Development, Mahinda Amaraweera, Secretary to the Ministry of Mahaweli Development Anura Dissanayake, Secretary to the State Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment Shantha Wijerathne, Acting Director General of Mahaweli Development Authority R.A.R.R.Rupasighe and other officials were present.