30,000 families to get houses under Jana Sevana programme
Written by Administrator
Monday, 17 July 2006
COLOMBO: The National Housing Development Authority (NHDA) is to provide 30,000 families with housing facilities by the end of 2006.
The project with an estimated cost of Rs.558 Million, has been initiated under the "Jana Sevana" housing programme which is in line with Mahinda Chinthana national policy, NHDA sources said.
The progress of the "Jana Sevana" programme was reviewed at a meeting held at the auditorium of the Ministry of Housing and Construction recently, presided over by Minister Ferial Ashraff.
According to the details revealed at the meeting significant progress has been achieved in the first half of the year surpassing expectations in comparison with the last decade, NHDA sources said.
The NHDA attributed the success to systematic financial management, dedication of the officials and the enthusiastic participation of the recipient householders.
The NHDA has 36,974 housing units as its target for 2006 and has already completed the construction of 25,869 housing units up to June 30, with the participation of the beneficiary families.
Several sub programmes have been implemented.In one such programme NHDA has successfully completed the accelerated "Diri Sevena" programme constructing 250 housing units within 90 days, in 12 underprivileged Divisional Secretarial divisions.
Based on the success of this programme the "Jana Sevana-1,000" housing programme has been launched in all secretarial divisions where acute poverty is prevalent including the North and East.
Under this programme 1,000 selected families received a Rs.50,000 loan to construct their houses and another 1000 low income families were granted housing loans upto a maximum of Rs.100,000.
Other than the above programmes cluster housing programmes at village level have been launched to construct 3,500 housing units at a cost of Rs. 207 million.
In addition to these programmes launched in 2006, several programmes were implemented to complete the on-going housing programme which commenced in the previous year, NHDA sources said.
Upto June 30 this year, the NHDA has provided technical assistance to construct more than 2,000 houses for tsunami victims in Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara, Galle and Matara districts.
Minister Ferial Ashraff said at the progress review meeting that "The NHDA should work closely with the people of the urban and rural areas in providing housing facilities using their own experiences".
The Minister further said that the Government is expected to launch a special programme in 2007 to provide sustainable roofing for permanent houses.
The Minister instructed the NHDA officials to conduct a countrywide survey to identify homes that are in need of such roofs and to collect data in this regard.
According to NHDA sources already 16,534 housing units have been provided with roofing sheets under the "Sevana Piyasa" programme. NHDA said that they intend purchasing these roofing material from local manufacturers.
P. Veerahandi, Secretary to the Minister of Housing and Construction, Chairman Mohamed Rafeek, Vice Chairman A.W. Dayananda, Working Director M.T.M. Sadik, General Manager Wasantha Wijeratne of the NHDA and Additional Secretaries of the Ministry of Housing and Construction, P.W. Kodippili, U.A. Seneviratne, S.R. Kanaganayagam and several other senior officials participated at this meeting.
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