The Secretary of the Chandrasekaran People's Front, lawyer S. Anusha Chandrasekaran, has called on the Sri Lankan government to introduce dedicated legislation in Parliament to address longstanding land rights issues faced by Hill Country Tamils.
Chandrasekaran urged the government to enact a land rights law that would formally grant ownership of homes and properties to residents in the plantation regions, many of whom have lived for decades without legal title to the land they occupy.
She emphasised that the current National People’s Power government, which holds a two-thirds majority in Parliament, has the authority and capacity to introduce and pass such legislation.
According to Chandrasekaran, successive Sri Lankan governments have repeatedly pledged to address the rights of Hill Country Tamils but have failed to implement meaningful reforms.
She noted that many families in the plantation sector have lived in the same homes for more than half a century without receiving legal recognition of ownership.
Plantation workers in particular continue to reside in estate housing that remains under the control of plantation management or government authorities. As a result, residents often require permission from estate officials even for basic actions such as constructing boundary walls or making improvements to their homes.
Chandrasekaran pointed out that previous coalition governments had struggled to introduce legislation specifically addressing the rights of Hill Country Tamils, even when they held two-thirds majorities in Parliament.
In such administrations, she said, no single party had the authority to take independent decisions on major reforms.
In contrast, she observed that the present government’s two-thirds majority is composed entirely of members from a single political party. This, she argued, presents a rare opportunity for the government to enact a comprehensive law that would resolve the longstanding land rights issue.
Chandrasekaran called on the government to use its parliamentary majority to introduce legislation that would grant Hill Country Tamils legal ownership of the homes and lands where many families have lived and worked for generations.
