There had been 489 families who were resident in the Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project Area prior to commencement of the project. Many of them were living in tin-roofed line rooms which had one verandah and a room with no separate kitchen or bathroom facility, forced to use one bath room by several families. In fulfilling the government’s promise to provide them better housing facilities, 489 modern housing units have been constructed by the project and all affected people have been settled.
These people had been 9 settlements in the project area viz: Kumaragama with 61 families, Devisiripura with 20 families, Talawakele with 160 families, Ratneelakele with 117 families, Middlton Bar with 26 families, Middleton Division with 17 families, Walkers with 28 families, U.C.scavengers with 39 families, and Nanuoya Division with 21 families totaling 489 families.
All these 489 families are now settled in 6 settlements with housing units built under five categories allocated to them on the basis of floor areas they used to occupy in their previous settlements. Accordingly House Type A with 2 bed rooms, a Hall, Kitchen and Bathroom has been allocated to families who were occupying 0-400 sq.ft area as their living quarters/houses, house Type B with 3 bed room plus, hall, kitchen and two bathrooms to families who were occupying 4010-600 sq. ft. area as their living quarters/houses, House Type C to those who were occupying 601-800 sq. ft.areas previously, House Type D to those occupying 801-1000 sq. ft. areas previously, House Type E to those occupying 1001-1200 sq. ft. areas previously, and House Type F with 5 Bed rooms to those occupying 1201-1501sq. ft. previously. The large type houses consists an additional servant bathroom as well and are two-storied houses. The houses are provided with pipe water facility and electricity supplies. The kitchens are fixed with pantry cupboards. The Project has also fixed ceiling fans and provided lamp shades for each and every house. The new occupants have only brought in their used or new furniture. Each housing unit occupies a land area ranging from 7 to 10 perches.
Many of the occupants have taken to home gardening as well around their new dwellings and have planted various types of flowers, and vegetables such as salad, beetroot, tomato, beans, carrot, brinjal and raddish.
To compensate those who were growing vegetables in the previous settlement areas 42 plots of land have been provided to them to grow vegetables. To facilitate the occupants of the new houses to meet their day to day purchasing needs 2 cooperative shops have also been established in addition to shops provided for those affected.
A group of media personnel visited these housing units yesterday, organized by the Media Centre for National Development of the Ministry of Mass Media and Information. Residents interviewed by the media groups expressed their happiness about getting such modern housing units, which some of them said they could have never built or dreamt of having on their own, and were grateful to President Mahinda Rajapaksa for undertaking to build the Upper Kotmale Project which had been almost abandoned due to political expediency and other reasons.
75% of the people resettled in these new housing units are Tamils and the rest 22% are Sinhalese and 3% Muslims. The Project has also constructed 3 new Kovils, and 2 Christian Churches to replace those affected by the project acquisition. There was no Muslim mosque affected.(niz).
Courtesy: Government Information Department
