Challenges in Implementing Best Practices in Involuntary Resettlement: A Case Study in Sri Lanka

At the policy level, the project triggered the formulation of the National Involuntary Resettlement Policy (2001), the approval of the memoranda by the Cabinet of Ministers (2001) on a comprehensive land acquisition and resettlement framework, and the endorsement of the Land Acquisition Regulations of 2008, all of which improved the scope of entitlements of the APs and elevated the local land acqu. [...] The RDA sent several letters to the CEA requesting the approval for the FT.23 On 19 April 2004, the CEA required the RDA to reconfirm that the FT was within the area where the EIA of 1999 was conducted. [...] land acquisition and Compensation program The RDA planned to pay compensation and to complete the relocation of the physically displaced households in the ADB-funded section of the expressway by the end of December 2003, except in the road sections of the Bope–Poddala and Akmeemana divisional secretariat areas, where engineering designs were not finalized. [...] The ADB-funded section of the expressway was given the priority on land acquisition and compensation payment after the awarding of the contract to construct the expressway in April 2003 and the decision to complete land acquisition in the ADB-section of the expressway before April 2004. [...] The continuing agitation of the APs against the FT in the JBIC-funded section of the expressway also delayed land acquisition, as in case of the ADB-funded section of the expressway.