Under special scheme for public servants:

Over 11,350 get property loans

Uditha Kumarasinghe and Irangika Range

Chief Government Whip and Urban Development and Sacred Area Development Minister Dinesh Gunawardene told Parliament yesterday that the Government has granted 11,354 property loans amounting to Rs. 10,277 million to public servants in the country under the special loan scheme implemented by the Bank of Ceylon.

The number of loans granted to public servants in the Northern and Eastern Provinces are 1,245 amounting to Rs. 1,052 million.

"We have granted 430 property loans amounting to Rs. 369.4 million to public servants in the Northern Province while 815 loans to the tune of Rs. 682.7 million have been granted to public servants in the Eastern Province under this special loan scheme," he said.

The Minister was responding to an oral question raised by JVP MP R.O.A. Ranaweera Pathirana. He said the amount granted to the Northern and Eastern Provinces is 10-24 percent of the total amount granted under the scheme.

Applications received from Government servants in these two provinces were entertained according to the same policy adopted for all other provinces in the country.

Therefore, the granting of loans to the Northern and Eastern Provinces was done in a proper manner.

The Minister said that the Government is in the process of granting loans to 1,300 public servants who are on the waiting list.

The maximum amount granted to one person under the scheme at the beginning is the sum equivalent of five years consolidated salary of the employee or sum equivalent to Rs. 2 million whichever is less and the interest rate is 10 percent (four percent from the applicant and six percent from the employer).

At present, the maximum amount granted as a loan to one person is the sum equivalent to seven years consolidated salary of the employee or Rs. 3 million whichever is less.