Houses damaged due to conflict reconstructed

Trincomalee correspondent

HOUSES damaged due to the conflict in the eight districts of the North-East province are to be reconstructed under the North-East Province Housing Reconstruction Programme funded by International Development Association (IDA).

According to an official report 290,615 houses have been damaged due to the conflict in the districts of Jaffna - 105,064, Batticaloa - 57,943, Trincomalee - 38,310, Kilinochchi - 27,363, Mullaithivu - 22,871, Mannar - 20,082, Ampara - 11,342 and Vavuniya - 7,640.

The criteria under which beneficiaries will be selected are their houses should be damaged due to the conflict, should prove the ownership of the land should be resettled in the village and the monthly family income should be less than Rs. 2,500.

For a fully damaged house, the beneficiary will receive a grant of Rs. 250,000 paid in four instalments and a house should not be less than 500 square feet, should have two rooms, toilet, kitchen and permanent tile roof.

Under this program 31,270 houses are to be built in the eight districts. This programme commenced in 2004 and will be completed in 2008. It should be noted that 860 houses were built on the basis of a pilot project in the year 2004 and 4,904 houses will be built in 2005.

13,397 houses are to be built in 2006 and the number of houses to be built in 2007 will be 9,400. In the year 2008, the number of houses scheduled to be built will be 2,709.

Construction work on the houses allocated under Phase I 2005 is progressing.