27 July 2010 10:56 am
The Welikada Prison property will be up for sale once the Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms Ministry re-locates the prison to a new location, Rehabilitation and Prisons Reforms Minister D.E.W. Gunasekara said.
Sri Lanka’s prison system will go through a series of changes including the re-location of almost all the major prisons including the Welikada, Bogambara and Jaffna prisons and the Borella Magazine remand prison over the next two years at a cost of over Rs. 10 billion, Minister D.E.W. Gunasekara added.
The land on which the Welikada Prison complex is situated is one of the largest single plots of land in the city. The Rehabilitation and Prison Reforms Ministry expects to raise funds for prison re-location programme by selling this land and the offer will be open to the private sector too.
The modalities of the transaction will be worked out by the government shortly. Minister Gunasekara pointed out that Welikada prison premises covers a highly valuable prime land of 40 acres in the city that can be utilized for commercial purposes.