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From Ranil Wijayapala in Nuwara Eliya

President Mahinda Rajapakse yesterday pledged a better life for the estate community through by the uplift of living standards and by improving basic facilities such as roads, transport, health and education in the estate sector.

President Rajapakse in his first one to one meeting with the estate community in Hatton and Dickoya assured that all the problems faced by them will be resolved soon.

The estate community accorded a rousing welcome to President Rajapakse, the first president to visit them in recent years.

They expressed their satisfaction and urged the President handle their problems once they were forwarded to him. President Rajapakse on the invitation extended by the Ceylon Workers Congress leader Arumugan Thondaman and Saumyamurthi Thondaman Foundation inaugurated the Praja Shakthi programme aimed at empowering women and youth in the estates in the upcountry.

The Praja Shakthi programme aims at establishing community service centres in 450 estates countrywide at a cost of Rs.200 million.

The first phase of the projects aims at establishing 27 community service centres within three months enabling the estate community to communicate with each other easily.

He ceremonially opened the Vanaraja computer centre, the first computer centre opened under the Praja Shakti programme.

President Rajapakse said that the estate community will not be sidelined from other communities and will be given the due place in society.

He assured that the Government has decided to recruit 3,000 teachers from the estate community and also to recruit people from the estate sector to the Security Forces and the Police.

President Rajapakse was hailed by the estate women who gathered at Saumyamurthi Congress Vocational Training Centre for directing the Police to take speedy action against the selling and brewing of illicit liquor in estates which had become a menace to the estate community.

The estate women told the President that illicit liquor had brought misfortune to many of their families and urged the President to take immediate action to wipe out the menace.

He also took prompt action to direct Education Minister Susil Premjayanth to take action to provide the mid day meal for estate schools as they complained that most of the schools did not receive mid day meals.

President Rajapakse also urged them to make use of the opportunity to promote eating rice among the estate community and asked them to use more rice rather than using wheat flour for daily meals. The Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Nirupama Rao also participated at this meeting.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.