Homes for IDPs in Sri Lanka progressing smoothly, says MEA

Chennai:

The special secretary of Development Partnership Administration P S Raghavan said that the pilot project for construction of 1,000 houses for internally displaced perons in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka is over.

Delivering a special address during the Madras Management Association (MMA) Awards function and 57^th annual general meeting of MMA, Raghavan, who lead a high-level Monitoring Committee from Ministry of External Affairs to monitor the reconstruction work in Sri Lanka recently, said the second phase of the housing project under the owner–driven model for construction or repair of 43,000 houses in the Northern and Eastern Provinces is progressing smoothly.

He said the phase was progressing well and there was a degree of satisfaction among beneficiaries, local community and other stakeholders with the implementation mechanism put in place by the two governments.

“The project is way ahead of plan and people are accepting the project,” he said. To a query on how fair is the project following allegations of Tamils being discriminated in Sri Lanka, Raghavan said that there is a rigorous selection process for beneficiaries. “It is ensured that the beneficiaries are Tamils only,” he said.

He refused to talk about the political rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka, stating that the primary focus is on dealing with rehabilitation of the displaced people.

Raghavan also said that the economic situation in the northern province of Sri Lanka has greatly improved.

Raghavan also said the work on multi-million dollar Salma Dam Project, which is one of the two big projects India undertook in Afghanistan, the other being the Parliament building, is progressing under difficult circumstances.

The project, which will meet energy and irrigation requirement of Western Afghanistan, with a capacity of producing 42Mw of power and irrigating 75,000 hectares of land, is progressing on a difficult terrain. “At times the workers will be caught in the firing between Afghan troops and rebels but work goes on,” said Raghavan.

The Development Administration Partnership (DPA) was created in the Ministry of External Affairs in January 2012 to effectively handle India’s aid projects through the stages of concept, launch, execution and completion.

Earlier, Raghavan along with D Shivakumar, president of All india Management Association and senior vice-president Nokia, presented MMA awards to Rane (Madras) Ltd in the manufacturing category, Sundaram Finance Ltd for the services category, Adtech Systems Ltd, Trivandrum for the small and medium enterprises category and National Institute of Technology, Trichy in educational institutions category.

The aim of the award is to promote sound management ideas, knowledge, experience and practices in various disciplines.