COLOMBO – The fourth stage of the Indian Housing Project, ‘Bharat-Lanka’ which will see the construction of 1,300 houses for plantation sector workers in 45 estates across 10 districts was launched in a virtual ceremony Monday (19). President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, Santosh Jha and Minister of Water Supply and Estate Infrastructure Development Jeevan Thondaman, attended the virtual ceremony at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo which saw the unveiling of the foundation stone plaque.
Phase IV of the Indian Housing Project (IHP) will see a total of 10,000 houses being constructed by the Government of India for plantation workers across six provinces in Sri Lanka.
The Indian High Commission in a statement announcing the launch noted that Phase –IV of the project had been declared by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Sri Lanka and that the foundation stone for the phase was laid virtually on November 2, 2023, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and President Wickremesinghe during the former’s visit to Sri Lanka.
The Indian government’s total commitment under the flagship housing project currently stands at 60,000 houses, with 46,000 houses constructed under the first two phases, covering the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Phase III, under which 4000 houses are being built for plantation workers, are at the verge of completion, the statement said.
It added that the Indian-origin Tamil community and plantation regions have been of specific focus under the Government of India’s development cooperation partnership with Sri Lanka and that the overall portfolio of grant projects stands at more than SLR 30 billion.
The statement also noted that in addition to 14,000 houses, the construction of a multi-speciality hospital in Dickoya had been undertaken as another landmark project and that a multi-sectoral package of SLR 3 billion was announced by Prime Minister Modi, during the visit of President Wickremesinghe to India, in July 2023. The visit was made to mark 200 years of the arrival of Indian origin Tamil community to Sri Lanka.
Addressing the launch ceremony, Wickremesinghe acknowledged that the Tamil community of Indian Origin, who have made significant contributions to the country’s economy, had suffered great losses due to the lack of land and housing ownership, and that their economic and social rights needed to be upheld.
He said the Sri Lankan government was actively initiating the process, starting with negotiations with estate companies to acquire land for the construction of the houses under the IHP.
-ENCL
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