Gemi Diriya to uplift families in 546 villages

Uditha Kumarasinghe

COLOMBO: The Government through the "Gemi Diriya" poverty alleviation drive has taken steps to uplift the socio-economic conditions of low income families in 546 remote villages.

Under the first stage, the Gemi Diriya project has been implemented in 546 villages in 34 Divisional Secretariat divisions under the purview of Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Ratnapura, Moneragala, Badulla and Polonnaruwa districts, achieving considerable progress.

The Gemi Diriya project functions under the Rural Livelihood Development Ministry, has earmarked to expand the project to 1,000 remote villages next year, Gemi Diriya project director Dr. Gamini Batuvitage told a media briefing yesterday.

The World Bank has granted Rs.5,000 million to implement the first phase of the Gemi Diriya project for a period of four years. The overall objective of the project is to uplift the infrastructure facilities of 4,000 backward rural villages through a community driven rural development mechanism within 12 years, he said.

Considering the progress achieved by the Gemi Diriya project, the World Bank has pledged to grant US$ 181 million to implement Gemi Diriya project for 12 years. The prime objective of the Gemi Diriya project is to develop the socio-economic standards of people in remote villages based on their own hopes and aspirations, he added.

"Each project will be implemented utilising the resources available in these villages. The project also intends to provide an answer to the rural development projects implemented with the intervention of outside partners which were unsuccessful over the past several years. Therefore, the rural community will act as the decision making body of these each projects."

The Ministry has successfully completed the pilot project of Gemi Diriya in 24 selected villages. Due to the success achieved by the project, the World Bank has granted Rs.5,000 million to the Ministry to extend the project into a large number of backward rural villages within the next four years, the spokesman said.

Under the Gemi Diriya programme, the Government will implement a series of programmes to uplift basic facilities of the community in these selected villages and extricate the poor from poverty.

Therefore, the programme will mainly consist of three major components of income generation, savings and investment promotion, he said.