22 August 2020 10:11 am
India’s flagship housing project envisaging the construction of 50,000 houses in Sri Lanka at an overall outlay of Rs.33 billion under a full grant basis is almost complete, a statement from the Indian High Commission said.
The statement revealed that the contract for construction of transit housing units in Mannar was awarded to M/s R A Constructions at the High Commission of India, Colombo on August 18, 2020. The agreement was signed between M/s R A Constructions and Banu Prakash, Counsellor, Development Cooperation, High Commission of India. Vinod K. Jacob, Deputy High Commissioner of India and S. Hettiarachchi, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, witnessed the ceremony.
“The project envisages construction of 144 transit housing units in Mannar as identified by the Government of Sri Lanka under an Indian grant assistance of SLR 300 Million. The Government of India has been implementing several projects in the field of housing island wide, deepening India-Sri Lanka cooperation in livelihood development. India’s flagship housing project envisaging construction of 50,000 houses in Sri Lanka at an overall outlay of SLR 33 billion under full grant basis is almost complete. An agreement for construction of an additional 10,000 houses in the plantation areas at an outlay of SLR 11 billion on a grant basis was signed in August 2018. This makes the total number of houses being built under the Indian Housing Project as 60,000. In addition, close to 3,000 houses are being built under the model villages housing programme in all districts of Sri Lanka, taking the total number of houses being built by India in Sri Lanka to 63,000.
These projects are in continuation of the Government of India’s people-oriented development cooperation with the Government of Sri Lanka. India’s overall development portfolio in Sri Lanka currently stands at close to SLR 517 billion out of which, SLR 92 billion is grant assistance and more than SLR 425 billion under Lines of Credit and Buyer’s Credit,” the statement said.