Mahatma Gandhi Model Village in Ampara District
High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, Santosh Jha, and Minister of Housing, Construction and Water Supply Dr. Susil Ranasinghe, jointly inaugurated and handed over the Mahatma Gandhi Model Village in Ampara to the 24 beneficiary families.
T.B. Sarath, Deputy Minister of Housing, Construction and Water Supply; Hon. Wasantha Piyathissa, Deputy Minister of Rural Development, Social Security and Community Empowerment; and Hon. Priyantha Wijerathna, Member of Parliament, also participated in the ceremony.
The event was also attended by senior officials from the Ministry of Housing, Construction and Water Supply of Sri Lanka; the Chairman and senior officials from the National Housing Development Authority; and officials from the Eastern Provincial Council and the Ampara District Administration.
The Model Village Housing Project is being implemented in all 25 districts of the island jointly with the Ministry of Housing, Construction, and Water Supply of Sri Lanka, with grant support from the Government of India.
A Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of India and the Government of Sri Lanka was signed for the project in October 2017.
The project encompasses housing facilities for 600 low-income families in Sri Lanka, with a model village in each district consisting of 24 houses for families selected by the District Housing Committees.
Model villages under the project have earlier been inaugurated and handed over in 16 districts: Batticaloa, Vavuniya, Jaffna, Kandy, Gampaha, Anuradhapura, Badulla, Matale, Puttalam, Colombo, Trincomalee, Monaragala, Kilinochchi, Mannar, Mullaithivu, and Rathnapura.
The project progress is nearly 98% and the remaining model villages are expected to be inaugurated and handed over to the beneficiaries soon.