|
|
|
| Sunday, 7 August 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Business |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Real estate boom in city and its environs by Don Asoka Wijewardena A spectacular Real Estate boom has emerged in the inner and outer city of Colombo as private sector developers are in the process of constructing huge buildings of a condominium nature such as Celestial Floor, Colombo Plaza Monarch and Finco Empire Tower in the inner city of Colombo, but no simultaneous program to upgrade the provision of infrastructure ensuring uninterrupted supply of water, electricity, sewerage and garbage disposal has been operated, said Chamber of Construction Industry President Surath Wickremasinghe in an interview with the "Sunday Observer". Wickremasinghe said that a constructive plan on future infrastructure requirements had not been formulated although a large number of high-rise complexes were being constructed utilising state-of-the-art technology and pointed out that it was incumbent on the government to lay a special emphasis to ensure whether the available infrastructure could cope with the future demand of the construction industry. Referring to the old water, sewerage and drainage systems,Wickremasinghe said that 90 per cent of those systems which belonged to the colonial era had not been changed hitherto to cater to the needs of the current population explosion and added that CCI would be happy to advise any developer (either government or private) on a set of guidelines of construction activities with the assistance of competent engineers and architects of the CCI. When asked about any budget proposals the CCI would submit, Wickremasinghe said that one of the proposals was for the government to introduce a tax incentive scheme for the private sector developers to construct mega housing projects for low-income groups under the "Urban Regeneration Project". By encouraging private sector developers to construct housing complexes for low-income groups discrimination could be eliminated, he said. The CCI President said that another budget proposal was to promote Public-Private Partnership which would pay good dividends to both in the long run. He said that the Panchikawatta triangle which comprised Panchikawatta, Sangaraja Mawatha and Maradana were full of shanties, tenements and slums had covered 2 km with 17 acres in the inner city of Colombo. His budget proposal was to ask the government to relocate those shanties in close proximity as 17 acres of unencumbered lands would bring in Rs. 20 billion investments to the country. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
