NorthEast Housing Project workshop to be held in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 May 2005, 16:06 GMT]
The Project Launching Workshop of the World Bank funded North East Housing Reconstruction Programme (NEHRP) is to be held on May 19 at Mahaweli Centre in Colombo under the patronage of the Provincial Governor Mr.Tyronne Fernando, Sources said. The purpose of the workshop is to create awareness of the project's mission and objectives among all those who are involved in the project implementation, NEHRP sources said.

Mr.Peter Harrold, World Bank Sri Lanka Director, Mr.D.M.Dassanayake, Deputy Minister for Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconciliation, Mr.Ameer Ali, Minister for Batticaloa District Development and Rehabilitation, Mr.Najeeb Abdul Majeed, Trincomalee District development and Rehabilitation, Mr.Rishard Badiudin, Vanni District Development and Rehabilitation, Mr.Anwar Ismail, Deputy Minister for Eastern Province Infrastructure Development, Mr.A.L.M. Athaullah, Eastern Province Infrastructure Development, and Ms Ferial Ashraff, Minister of Housing and Construction Industry, Eastern Province Education and Irrigation Development are scheduled to address the inaugural event of the workshop.

According to the agenda, a representative of the Planning and development Secretariat in Killinochchi is also to address the workshop, sources said.

Mr.S.Pathmanathan, Project Director of the NEHRP will deliver the welcome address and a keynote address in the afternoon Technical Session on the purpose of the workshop and its objectives, sources said.

Discussions are to be held during the technical session on the topics of skill training, mobilizing building materials, transfer of housing technology and technical requirements and the land task force, NEHRP sources said.

NEHRP has already completed the construction of 860 houses out of 30,271 houses damaged by the two-decade-old war, as a pilot project in the eight districts of the province. NEHRP is also currently tasked with the construction of about 15,000 houses replacing tsunami-destroyed houses in five coastal districts of the province outside the buffer zone, sources said.

NEHRP has increased the grant to be given to a beneficiary for the reconstruction of the fully damaged house from 150,000 rupees to 250,000 rupees and for partly damaged house from 75,000 rupees to 100,000 rupees, sources said.