Rs 90,000 m for Colombo housing

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

The government will address the housing problems of those living in underserved settlements in Colombo with a project where 30,000 housing units will be constructed.

The Treasury has allocated Rs 90,000 million for the project. The Urban Development Authority (UDA) has been entrusted with the task of constructing the houses. A UDA Director said they were developing 10 sites identified by them to relocate some 1,000 underserved settlements in Colombo.

There is an estimated 1,500 underserved settlements found in the Colombo metropolitan area with over 60,000 families living in them, he said.

He said 30,000 housing units will be constructed as part I of the project.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has reportedly instructed the UDA to complete the housing units before the end of 2013.

The UDA director said the authority has arranged the lands for the development activity. Asked whether they were relocating the communities living in underserved settlements to areas outside Colombo, he stated that there is no such plans.

”In fact the arrangement has been to construct the houses in the vicinity of their settlements,“ he said.

”We are aware that a few politicians have started spreading a rumour that the government and the UDA were trying to chase them out of Colombo, which is a falsehood,” he said.

“How can we relocate them outside the city when the sites that were identified, which are under construction to build housing units for them, are within the Colombo metropolitan area?“ he asked.

The sites under costruction are in Aluthmawatha, Henamulla, Fergueson Road, Cyril C Perera Mawatha, Jewel Arts Land and Dematagoda, he said.

”On-site upgrading will be explored wherever possible,” he said.

”Each underserved settlement family is to get a standard house worth Rs 3 million under the Relocation of Underserved Settlement Projects of the UDA,” he added.