India-funded housing project hands over 24 homes in Polonnaruwa

High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, Santosh Jha, and Deputy Minister of Housing, Construction and Water Supply, T.B Sarath, jointly inaugurated and handed over 24 housing units in 'Suhada Gama' Model Village in Polonnaruwa district today (4).

Speaker of Parliament, Dr. Jagath Wickramarathna, joined the inauguration ceremony.

The Model Village Housing Project is being implemented in all 25 districts of the island jointly with the Ministry of Housing, Construction and Water Supply of Sri Lanka, with grant support from the Government of India. A Memorandum of Understanding for the initiative was signed in October 2017 between the Governments of India and Sri Lanka.

The project encompasses housing facilities for 600 low-income families of Sri Lanka, with each model village consisting of 24 houses per district for families selected by the District Housing Committees.

Model villages under the project were earlier inaugurated and handed over in 20 districts: Batticaloa, Vavuniya, Jaffna, Kandy, Gampaha, Anuradhapura, Badulla, Matale, Puttalam, Colombo, Trincomalee, Monaragala, Kilinochchi, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Ratnapura, Ampara, Kurunegala, Kegalle, and Kalutara. Project progress is nearly 98.5% complete, and the remaining four model villages are expected to be inaugurated and handed over to beneficiaries soon.

District Parliamentarians, the Chairman and senior officials from the National Housing Development Authority, and officials from the Polonnaruwa district administration also attended the inauguration event.