A file photo of Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe
| Photo Credit: AP
Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on March 22 released 234 acres of land, previously held by the Jaffna Security Forces Headquarters, to farmers in the area, a statement said.
Jaffna is a Tamil-dominated capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka.
The President’s Media Division of Sri Lanka (PMD) said in a post on X: “President Ranil Wickremesinghe released 234 acres of land which were previously held by the Jaffna Security Forces Headquarters, to farmers for cultivation purposes in 5 Grama Niladhari Divisions in Jaffna.”
These plots of land were released to farmers across five Grama Niladhari Divisions in Jaffna for cultivation purposes, The Morning News website reported.
Under the Urumaya national programme, aimed at distributing two million freehold deeds to the deserving public, Mr. Wickremesinghe symbolically presented the deeds, benefiting 408 individuals at a ceremony held in Jaffna’s Oddakapulam.
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Jaffna holds great significance as it was the region where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had run a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland for nearly 30 years before its collapse in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its supreme leader V. Prabhakaran.
The region has lacked economic development and the Sri Lankan leaders have said they are committed to the development of the Tamil-dominated Northern and Eastern provinces of the island nation.
