Shot in the arm for 145 villages in SP

Walter Liyanarachchi

The Southern Development Authority will spend Rs. 210 million in 2009 to keep up the life fabric of communities in 145 villages in the Southern Province, said Plan Implementation and Monitoring Director Bimal Wijeratne.

On instructions of the Ports, Aviation, Irrigation and Water Management Minister Chamal Rajapaksa, Rs. 55 million has been allocated to construct a building to house the offices of the Southern Development Authority. The Minister said the rent amounting to Rs. 65,000 paid monthly at present could be saved when the new building is opened in October in Matara.

On the instructions of the Minister 60 percent will be spent for economic development, 20 percent for social development and 20 percent for economic infrastructure development.

Implementing a novel idea, the Authority is planning to encourage private entrepreneurs to invest more funds to launch development projects.

“All this time we were anticipating funds from the Government coffers to invest on the projects but this year we have decided to obtain private partnership to attract more funds and now we are in the process of identifying prospective investors.

We also have plans to present them with valuable business packages to use the abundant resources and business opportunities in the Southern Province”, said Wijeratne. He said that plans are afoot to identify industries which are staggering - such as tea smallholdings, fresh water and sea water fishing, coconut and handicrafts.

Our trained teams will meet the industrialists in these sectors to study their problems and overcome the bottlenecks they face when they sell their produce.

We have also planned to conduct awareness programs on their products, said Wijeratne.