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Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - 08.34 GMT |
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UN bodies’ help for India’s IDP housing in Sri Lanka |
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India is obtaining the services of UN agencies such as UN Habitat and UN Ops to implement its major housing project for the Internally Displaced Persons – IDPs- in Sri Lanka.
This decision has been taken with the objective of maintaining transparency in this major programme costing Indian Rs. 1,320 crore. The UN agencies concerned already have a presence in Sri Lanka and are aware of the situation here. They are also experienced in identification of beneficiaries.
The project is part of the overall commitment of 50,000 houses announced by prime minister Manmohan Singh during the visit of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to India in June 2010. A total of 1000 houses are already under implementation.
As reported in the Deccan Herald today (Dec 14) the Union Cabinet at its meeting on December 8, allowed reconstruction and repair of a total of 49,000 houses for [IDPs in northern and eastern provinces and for Indian Origin Tamils in the island nation under grant assistance from the Indian government.
The assistance will include: construction of 38,000 houses and repair of 5000 houses under the owner-driven model for IDPs where owners have to build/repair their own houses, and construction of 6000 houses under the agency-driven model for vulnerable sections of IDPs.
“The significant feature of this programme is that there will be no middleman involved in this. The Lankan government is fine with this decision. There will be transparency in the appointment of implementing agencies,” Deccan Herald reported quoting informed sources.
In case of agency-driven model, the project monitoring company will be a reputed Indian agency with a proven track record in construction, the cabinet has decided. The list of all the beneficiaries would be given by the Lankan government.
The programme would be undertaken in what was once a war zone - during the LTTE days. The three-decades long armed conflict in the island led to displacement of thousands of people. Only a few thousand of more than 290,000 IDPs still remain in IDP centres. These are persons from areas in the North that have not yet been cleared of landmines and other dangers.
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