Northern development:

Projects worth Rs 50,000m launched in resettled areas -Jaffna GA Imelda Sukumar

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

Infrastructure development projects totaling to Rs 50,000 million have been launched in areas where internally displaced people have been resettled in the Jaffna Peninsula as at present, said Jaffna district GA Imelda Sukumar yesterday.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has given land clearance to more than 85 percent of lands affected by landmine contamination for development after successful de-mining operations, said Sukumar. Thousands of infrastructure development projects are now underway in these areas which had been security zones for decades barricading public access into them and thereby preventing development, she said.

Access to sea has also been established in Jaffna, she said. A team of World Bank officers that recently visited the peninsula, said that Jaffna’s physical progress was high, said Sukumar.

“During their six-day visit, they have asked me to speed up the financial progress in Jaffna for contractors who have undertaken various development activities and have not presented their bills. “This has created a small gap between the physical progress and the financial progress,” she explained.

Prior to 1983, the production of fish in Jaffna was 40,000 metric tonnes per annum.

‘However, with the start of fishing operations in Jaffna after liberating the sea in 2009, the fishermen in Jaffna have been producing 20,000 metric tonnes,’ she said.

“This is due to a trawling problem in the sea by foreign vessels, said Sukumar.” Illegal trawling has discouraged the fishermen. It has prevented us from achieving the targets set out by us,” she added.