India to build 1000 houses for war affected Tamils in Lanka as a pilot project

Ahead of the visit of the External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna to Sri Lanka, a memorandum of understanding has been signed for a “Pilot Project” for construction of 1000 houses by India for the war displaced Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka. This is part of India’a commitment to build 50 thousand houses for them.
Krishna is scheduled to visit the island nation for 3 days from 25th of this month for bilateral talks. Besides calling on the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Minister is to formally inaugurate the Indian consulates in Jaffna and Hambantota. These consulates are in addition to the existing Consulate at Kandy to cater essentially to the Indian origin Tamils in the tea estates.

The Agreement is between Hindustan Prefab Limited under the administrative control of Government of India, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi. It was signed by T.S. Tirumurti, Joint Secretary on behalf of Ministry of External Affairs and Jaiveer Srivastavaa, Chairman & Managing Director, HPL in New Delhi.

A statement by the Indian mission in Colombo said that under the Pilot Project, each house consists of 540 sq.ft. area and will be constructed with locally available material. HPL would be the Project Monitoring Consultant.

According to diplomatic circles the focus of the visit of Krishna would be on rehabilitation of the nearly three lakh displaced Tamil civilians during the conflict between the LTTE and Sri Lankan forces and on a political solution for resolution of the ethnic conflict.