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| Sunday, 13 March 2005 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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REELS township program gathers momentum by Hiran H. Senewiratne Real Estate Exchange (Pvt) Ltd (REEL) will accelerate the sustainable townships program launched in 1999, to address the shelter problem of the slum and shanty dwellers in the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR). The city of Colombo has almost 66,000 slums and shanties or 44 percent dwellings in the CMR region, REEL Chairman/Managing Director Dr. Krishan Deheragoda said. He said that nearly half of Colombo's population lives in squalid slums and shanties unfit for human beings by any standards. These people live in 1,506 pockets which are identified as Under Served Settlements (USS). These lands are basically state owned lands encroached by them with no titles. About 1,000 acres of valuable prime lands in the Colombo city have been encroached on during the past five decades. These lands are mostly environmentally sensitive as those places are low lying areas, canal and flood retention areas including road and railway reservations and other open spaces such as green lung areas, he said. "Today, Sri Lanka has to support the needs of the existing population of 18.7 million while maintaining the environment in a sustainable manner," he said. Further it has prepared its human settlement and the urban centres to accommodate 65 per cent of the population by the year 2030, Dr Deheragoda said. |
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