By Rahul Samantha Hettiarachchi
The Indian Grant Housing Programme, implemented with the aim of providing permanent shelter and land ownership to the estate community in Sri Lanka who have lived extremely difficult and challenging lives in line rooms for decades, is currently facing a serious legal and administrative crisis. According to official information obtained from the Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure under the Right to Information Act No. 12 of 2016, it is revealed that 920 families living in houses completed under Indian grant aid have not yet been able to obtain land deeds/titles due to legal issues.
Perumal Polraj (70), residing in Maskeliya, Hatton in the Nuwara Eliya District, is also an estate worker who has not received any document of ownership for his house. Having lived in line rooms for many years, he expressed deep sorrow over not receiving proper ownership of the house he received after his line room caught fire: “The line room we lived in caught fire. After a few years, we received these houses. What was given to us were incomplete houses without even proper road facilities, and it remains the same today. Also, it has been nearly 9 years since we came here, but to date, several people including myself have not been given any ownership documents for this home.”
Slow Progress in Deed Preparation and Distribution
According to official document RTI/2026/16 issued by the Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure, Cabinet approval has been granted to prepare deeds for 4,151 houses out of those constructed under Phase 1 (4,000 houses) and Phase 2 (10,000 houses) of the Indian Grant Housing Programme. However, this information reveals that field progress in implementing the Cabinet approval remains at an extremely slow level.
According to the summary of official information and data provided, out of the 4,151 houses approved by the Cabinet, title deeds have currently been prepared without legal issues for only 1,021 houses. Out of those, the number of title deeds officially granted to beneficiaries is 747, while the remaining number of completed deeds to be issued is 274. In addition, deeds are currently being prepared for 178 beneficiaries, and survey maps required for preparing deeds have been completed for only 147 houses. To date, the total number of beneficiaries who have been granted deeds on a freehold basis is 2,542, while the number of families unable to receive deeds due to various legal issues has risen to 920.
How Did Land Ownership Fall into a Legal Entanglement?
State estate lands held by Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) in Sri Lanka are controlled under long-term leases of 53 and 99 years. When allocating 10 perches of land per house under the housing project, officially re-vesting those land plots back to the government and obtaining the legal consent of the respective companies has become an extremely delayed process.
According to the information provided under the RTI Act, the Ministry has officially acknowledged that although 10 perches of land are allocated per house, the release of these lands by the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) is being delayed. Due to this failure to release land and the disruption of legal title transfers, 920 families face a serious risk of becoming “unauthorized occupants” within their own homes.
“A Roof Without Ownership”: The Socio-Economic Tragedy of the Estate Sector
The lack of freehold land ownership for the estate community is not merely a missing document, but a serious issue concerning their generational rights and social justice. The absence of a title deed forces these families to face several major problems.
Firstly, they are unable to access financial facilities because they cannot pledge the land deed as collateral required to obtain a commercial bank loan or start self-employment. Secondly, the inability to legally transfer home ownership from parents to children creates a risk of losing their generational inheritance. Furthermore, as the lack of deeds poses an obstacle when officially annexing newly emerging villages in the estate sector under Pradeshiya Sabha jurisdictions, they also face a local governance registration crisis.
Infrastructure Crisis and Underutilization of State Allocations
In addition to the title deed crisis, the report provided under the RTI Act reveals that 21 completed houses remain closed and unusable due to the failure to supply basic infrastructure. Specifically, 12 houses built in the Walahanduwa Estate in the Galle region lack drinking water facilities, while information discloses that steps have not yet been taken to provide drinking water and electricity facilities for 9 houses constructed in the Bentota Estate.
Likewise, out of the total allocation of Rs. 2,270 million (Rs. 2.27 billion) allocated by the Government of Sri Lanka from 2022 to 2026 to provide infrastructure for the 10,000 houses in Phase 2, only Rs. 324.47 million has been spent as of June 2026. This represents an extremely slow progress rate ranging from 8 percent to 34 percent, and local residents are facing severe hardship because work has not been completed despite funds being allocated. This also requires the attention of responsible authorities.
Project Progress and the Way Forward
Specifically, according to this information, 14,000 houses are scheduled to be constructed under Indian government assistance, and the 4,000 houses of the first phase have been fully completed. However, out of the 10,000 houses in the second phase, only 522 houses have currently been completed. Out of the ongoing phase of 1,300 houses, only 280 houses have been finished as of June 30, 2026 (an overall physical progress of 22 percent).
To liberate the estate people from the line room culture and turn them into true landowners, the government must take several urgent steps. First, a special Land Acquisition Task Force should be established as a legal body at the ministry level to urgently secure the release of the 10-perch land plots from the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs). Second, surveying work should be expedited through the Survey Department to quickly prepare survey maps for the 920 houses with legal issues and the remaining houses. Third, the infrastructure system must be properly coordinated by partnering with the Water Supply Board and the Electricity Board to immediately provide water and electricity to all constructed houses. Furthermore, properly implementing these foreign aid projects carried out for the people of Sri Lanka by providing the necessary infrastructure and legal support is both the responsibility and duty of an incumbent government as well as the public officials accountable to it.
(Source of information was obtained from the Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure under official document number RTI/2026/16 in terms of the Right to Information Act No. 12 of 2016.)
