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Thursday, October 06, 2011 - 05.15 GMT |
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We make Colombo a City of Excellence
-Defence Secretary |
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“Colombo…is becoming a special city as a large number of foreign investors are prepared to make investments and tourism industry is experiencing a boom with a very large number of tourist arrivals after the war ended. In this scenario Colombo becomes a vital city being the commercial centre with the main port, airport as well as administrative centre and the President wanted Colombo to experience a rapid pace of development and to correlate the Defence Ministry with this exercise”, says Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in an interview with The Nation newspaper.
Elaborating on the sustainability and transparency of the massive development thrust in Colombo, he says that it is a collaborative attempt by the Urban Development Authority, the Land Reclamation Authority and the local government institutions of each area. The funds are used very efficiently, he stresses.
“If we take Colombo’s garbage disposal task, for over many many years it was in disarray. Roads were not cleaned, posters polluted the entire city and though the Municipal Council should resolve these problems it was not done. But we stepped in with the environment protection units of the police and made a survey of the whole city and cleaned up the city”, he notes. “Now we are using the revenue of the CMC for development programmes, especially for building housing complexes for the low income groups of Colombo who are living in rundown shanty towns. We have been able to find additional funds through the Housing Development Authority for this task”.
“A true development means one that would give relief to the citizens of Colombo as well as for those who use the city…. The development taking place is a complex process interconnected with many challenges… Our plan to make Colombo a city of excellence is supported by the World Bank”, the Defence Secretary further says.
To read the full interview, follow http://www.nation.lk/2011/10/02/newsfe2.htm. |
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