Abstract:
Resettlement refers to the process by which individuals or a group of people leave
spontaneously or unspontaneously their original settlement sites to resettle in new
areas where they can begin new trends of life by adapting themselves to the
biophysical, social and administrative system of the new environment. However,
prima-face problem in most of these resettlements are that after some time these
resettlements is being turning into unproductive informal communities, though the
resettling agencies claim success with respect to their community resettlement
projects. Henceforth, this paper attempts to clarify this paradox from land market
point of view which is also the novelty of this study. Due to several reasons,
Hambantota tsunami resettlement sites were selected to study the land market
functioning by collecting required data through primary surveys, focus group
discussions and the reconnaissance surveys. In particular to the selected site rights
and obligations on alienated lands would depend on free grants issued under the
Crown Land Ordinance no 08 of 1947. Due to unclear land title the land market
analysis indicated several informalities and inefficiencies that would have been
affected to the stability of the resettlement.
