Seventeen hostel projects for varsities already built

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake told Parliament yesterday that Rs. 6,159.1 million had been approved from 2006 to 2013 to build 38 hostel projects in national universities.

Of them, 17 projects have been already completed while construction work on other projects is now in progress.

Responding to a question raised by UNP parliamentarian Dunesh Gankanda, the Minister said apart from this, a project to construct 60 hostels to provide hostel facilities for 24,000 university students commenced in September, 2013.

The Ministry has already completed construction work on 30 hostels by providing hostel facilities for 12,000 students. Construction work on the remaining 30 hostels commenced on September 18, 2014.

Except the Open University students, hostel facilities have been provided for 46 percent of the students in other universities by 2013. According to the criteria of the University Grants Commission, this is 86 percent of the number of students who are eligible for hostel facilities. At present, hostel facilities have been given for 5,000 students only.

In addition to the hostels set up in universities, the Ministry hopes to provide hostel facilities for all university students by constructing 30 hostels by 2015 and another hostel project will be launched by 2016, he said.Following a request to the Finance and Planning Ministry, permission has been granted to the universities to pay a monthly allowance of Rs. 2,000 to undergraduates who are not provided hostel facilities. The total number of students in national universities is 94,494 and hostel facilities have been provided for 36,121 students.