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Sri Lanka celebrates World Habitat Day today:
'Planning our urban future'
The United Nations has designated the first Monday in October each
year as World Habitat Day. The idea is to reflect on the state of our
towns and cities and the basic of all right to adequate shelter. It is
also intended to remind the world of its collective responsibility for
the future of the human habitat.
The United Nations chose the theme 'Planning our Urban Future' to
raise awareness of the need to improve urban planning to deal with new
major challenges of the 21st century.
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World Habitat Day Conference
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The world
Habitat Day National Conference and exhibition will be held on
October 5 at 9.30 a.m. at the Negombo Town Hall.
Minister of Housing and Common Amenities Ferial Ashraff and
Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Area Development Dinesh
Gunawardena will be the Chief Guests. Minister of Housing
Gitanjana Gunawardena, Minister of Urban Development, Rohana
Dissanayake, Western Province Chief Minister Prasanna Ranatunga,
Deputy Minister of Aviation, Sarath Kumara Gunaratne, Minister
of Road Development, Power and Energy, Housing and Construction,
Fisheries and Tourism of Western Province, Nimal Lansa and
Negombo Mayor Herman Bernard Kurera will also be present.
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The Government has decided to implement an islandwide development
program centralising Negombo town and its surrounding areas in view of
the 'World Habitat Day' today under the them 'Planning our Urban
Future'. The Housing and Common Amenities Ministry and the Urban
Development and Sacred Area Development Ministry have planned to
implement the 'Greater Negombo Development Program' to develop Negombo
town and neighbouring areas covering Negombo, Katana, Katunayake and
Seeduwa.
This program will be implemented under the guidance of Housing and
Common Amenities Minister Ferial Ashraff and Urban Development and
Sacred Area Development Minister Dinesh Gunawardena. Under the guidance
of the Housing and Common Amenities Ministry, the NHDA has already
implemented a special Habitat Week from September 20 to October 4.
During that week the NHDA has inaugurated the construction work of 10
housing schemes comprising of 500 housing units. Within this week the
NHDA has opened 20 housing schemes with 750 housing units and they have
made arrangements to distribute deeds of the house ownership for 800
families.
Various activities involving schoolchildren were implemented by the
NHDA with the participation of school students.
They have organised all island art and essay competition and more
than 2,000 entries were received. A series of seminars and workshops
parallel to this too have been organised with the participation of
government officials and public representatives to create an awareness
among the people.
The National Conference and the seminar will be held in Negombo Town
Hall today.
The arrangements have been made to declare the Greater Negombo
Development Plan at the World Habitat Day with the presentation of the
district settlement development program which will be implemented in all
districts. |
