Reconstruction of 13,000 houses in NorthEast to begin

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 February 2006, 03:13 GMT]
The World Bank funded North East Housing Reconstruction Programme (NEHRP) has commenced the second phase reconstruction of 13000 houses for the war victim families in the NorthEast. NEHRP officials started distributing forms to collect necessary data to select qualified beneficiaries affected by the two decade-old war in the province to be included in the second phase, a press release of the NEHRP said.

During the first phase launched in 2005, 3079 were completed of the 4904 houses selected for reconstruction work. (309 in Amparai, 501 in Batticaloa, 666 in Trincomalee 295 in Vavuniya, 484 in Mannar, 501 in Killinochchi, 513 inMullaitivu and 1635 in Jaffna at district level).

The reconstruction of remaining 1195 houses would be completed during February this year, NEHRP added in the press release.

Before the launch of the housing reconstruction programme last year, the survey of the NEHRP revealed that about 326,000 houses in the NorthEast were destroyed in the war and about 172,000 people were living in welfare centers and refugee camps in the province. Of the ruined houses eighty five percent are located in the North East region, the survey revealed.

The World Bank has provided financial assistance to reconstruct a portion of the ruined houses in the North East after cease-fire agreement was signed by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on 22nd February 2002.

The World Bank then agreed to provide US Dollars 75 million to the NEHRP to reconstruct 31,270 houses, a portion of the war-destroyed houses in the eight administrative districts of Amparai, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Killinochchi and Jaffna in the North East.

A group of World Bank officials including Mr.Naresh Duraiswamy (Team Leader), Asta Lesen (Senior Social Development Specialists, Narayanan Edadan (Senior Housing Consultant), Shideh Hadian (Operations Officer), Soraya Goga (Urban Specialist) and Nadeera Rajapakse (Environmental Specialist) recently visited the districts of Mannar, Vavuniya and Trincomalee and inspected the progress made in the first phase of housing reconstruction programme.

Mr. Peter Maher, Head of Operations of the European Commission (EC) Delegation to Sri Lanka, and Marian Houmayoun, Development Advisor to the EC, also joined the inspection mission.

The mission met with officials of the Ministry of Nation Building and Development, the Ministry of Housing, the North East Provincial Council, and the North East Housing Reconstruction Unit (NEHRU), District Secretaries of Batticaloa, Jaffna, Killinochchi, Mannar, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya, Divisional Secretaries in Mannar, Trincomalee and Vavuniya and International Development Partners, sources said.