Sri Lanka President focuses on development of Northern Province

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is on two-day visit to Jaffna, the capital city of war-torn Northern Province, today participated in several activities that were focused on the development of the region.
The President chaired a progress review meeting of the Northern Province today at the Jaffna Distract Secretariat. District Secretaries of Jaffna Kilinochchi, Mullativu, Mannar and Vavuniya districts presented the progress of each district to the President at the meeting. Among the projects, especially, focused on were the renovation work of A-9 road, implementation of electricity and drinking water supply schemes in the Province, finding immediate solutions to the problems in the agricultural sector of the Province and the resettlement, which according to the District Secretaries have already been completed.President Rajapaksa this morning declared open the new two-story ward complex of the Chavakachcheri Base Hospital and a residential compound for the doctors. The new 86-bed hospital complex constructed at a cost of 150 million rupees has CT scanners, a fully-fledged pharmacy and other facilities.


President handed over keys to hundreds of motor scooters and bicycles to the family and health service officers.
The construction work of the ward complex was carried out by the Northern Province Health Ministry with financial assistance from the Ministry of Health and the Red Cross Societies of Finland and Ireland.
Addressing the gathering in Tamil, the President said since everyone can now live freely in the country, he is requesting to all Sri Lankan professionals in overseas countries to come back and serve the people.
He said his main objective is to provide better living standards to everyone in the country irrespective of any differences.
The President also declared open the new swimming pool of the Jaffna Central College constructed with the contributions made by the Tharunyata Hetak organization.
Addressing the crowd in Tamil, the Sri Lankan President said it is the duty and responsibility of the government to provide the facilities available in the Colombo city to children of the villages as well.
"An atmosphere should be created for the child generation who are to take the responsibility of this country in the future to obtain their education freely and to protect their health conditions," the President said at the meeting.
He stressed the importance of learning all three languages, Sinhala, Tamil and English and in order to make the country a trilingual nation and asked everyone to learn the languages.
Minister of Health Maithripala Sirisena, Minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development Douglas Devananda and Governor of Northern Province Major general G.A. Chandrasiri also participated in the activities.