NEHRP to reconstruct 7,000 houses in NorthEast

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 March 2005, 15:57 GMT]
The World Bank (WB) funded North East Housing Reconstruction Programme (NEHRP) is to reconstruct 4000 houses destroyed in the war and 3000 houses destroyed by the tsunami in the coastal areas, sources said.

Earlier the NEHRP planned to reconstruct only 2530 destroyed houses, but the NEHRP Provincial Co-ordinating Committee (PCC) last week gave approval to increase the number to seven thousand to meet the increased need, sources said.

Mr.S.Rangarajah, Chief Secretary of the North East Provincial Council (NEPC) presided the PCC meeting held at the NEPC Auditorium Saturday.

NEHRP Project Director Mr.S.Pathmanathan, World Bank Consultant Mr.E.Narayanan, Government Agents of eight districts of NorthEast and Deputy Project Directors of the NEHRP participated in the meeting, sources said.

Government Agents of Amparai, Batticaloa and Trincomalee agreed to reconstruct one thousand tsunami-destroyed houses each in their respective districts.

In the meantime, houses destroyed during the two-decade-old war, 300 houses each in the districts of Mannar and Amparai, 350 in Vavuniya district and five hundred each in the districts of Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Killinochchi and Mullaitivu and 1000 in Jaffna district, would be reconstructed before the end of 2005, PCC sources said.

PCC has granted permission to the Government Agents to commence reconstruction immediately on damaged houses allocated for 2006 as soon as reconstruction of seven thousand houses is completed, sources said.

Each new owner of a reconstructed house will be paid 250,000 rupees in four instalments. Owner of a partially damaged house will be paid 100,000 rupees in two instalments.

War victim families should prove their monthly income is below 2,500/= per month to obtain financial assistance and tsunami victim families are exempted from this condition, PCC decided.

Government Agents of Mullaitivu, Killinochchi, Mannar and Vavuniya have already identified the villages affected by the war to be included in the reconstruction project. Government Agents of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Amparai are currently in the process of identifying such villages in their respective districts, PCC was told.

Meanwhile, District Task Forces appointed to look into about sixty thousand complaints regarding the ownership of war and tsunami destroyed houses are working to find solution before the commencement of the reconstruction project, sources said.