Govt. provided facilities to estate community

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

COLOMBO: The estate community in the up country cannot forget the services rendered by President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Government.

It is this Government that provided them with electricity for the first time and also schools, hospitals, roads, water supply schemes and community centres, said Deputy Minister of Health Vaduveil Suresh at a press conference held at the Ministry of Nation Building in Colombo yesterday.

He said under Mahinda Chinthanaya 2,571 houses will be completed before the end of the year at a cost of Rs. 1,250 million and 30% of the work have been already completed.

He pointed out that the present Government has allocated Rs. 1,150 million for the benefit of estate community which include Rs. 700 million for the road infrastructure to repair 445 roads and construct 164 new roads which will be completed by the end of this year.

Also Rs. 55 million for water supply and Rs. 105 million for the electricity and Rs. 290 million for education and education development had been allocated.

He said that the LTTE is frightened about these developments because the Government has gained the confidence of Tamil people which will weaken their stability. He insisted that everyone should get together to strengthen the hands of the President.

Educating the media on the latest issue on the admission of year one schoolchildren Minister of Justice Dilan Perera proposed that the Government must submit this to the Parliament as an Act and implement it properly from the next year.

He pointed out that the opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who brought a white paper to abolish free education as the Minister of Education is attempting to politicise this issue.

The media conference was organised by the Ministers’ Secretaries Union.