Sri Lanka’s government plans to amend the Title Registration Act No. 21 of 1998 after the national land-titling programme known as ‘Bimsaviya’ failed to meet its targets for digitising property records, EconomyNext reported.
The Cabinet of Ministers approved a proposal to revise the law following problems identified during the programme’s rollout over the past two decades. Cabinet spokesman and Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said various issues had been detected in the implementation of Bimsaviya and that the scheme had so far failed to achieve its intended goals.
The proposal to amend the Act was submitted by the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Lands and Irrigation and received Cabinet approval after consultations with stakeholders across relevant sectors to draft the necessary legislative changes.
Bimsaviya was launched to move Sri Lanka from a deeds-based system of land ownership to a title registration system, under which the state guarantees ownership recorded in an official register. Supporters say a functioning title register reduces land disputes, simplifies property transactions and makes it easier to use land as collateral for credit.
Progress on the programme has been slow, however, with only a fraction of the country’s land parcels surveyed and registered. The government says the amendments are intended to remove legal and administrative bottlenecks that have held back the digitisation drive and to accelerate the pace of registration.
