Govt committed to uplift plantation community -CWC President

By P. Krishnasamy

President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the UPFA leaders, including Economic Development Minister and Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa, are incessant in their commitment towards the socio-economic uplift of the plantation community and all programs envisaged under the 'Mahinda Chinthana' for their welfare are under undeterred implementation, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) President Muthu Sivalingam told the Sunday Observer.

Refuting allegations of political opponents that there is no ministry at present to work for the welfare of the plantation community, the Deputy Minister said that all subjects, departments and functions of the former Estate Infrastructure Development Ministry that was functioning under the Nation Building Ministry have now been brought under Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa with himself as one of the three Deputy Ministers. Funds have been allocated for the development programs that were envisaged for the plantation community under the 'Mahinda Chinthana', he said.

Under the program of providing decent housing facilities to the plantation workers, 10,000 independent/ twin housing units have already been constructed with 5000 more to be constructed under the ongoing projects, he said. The total estimated requirement of new houses is 150,000 and in an effort to expedite the process of providing new decent dwellings the plantation families are also being provided financial assistance with a ceiling of Rs. 450,000. The applications for assistance have to be processed by the Estate Workers' Housing Cooperative Society and the Plantation Human Development Trust (PHDT), the Deputy Minister said. Of the amount Rs. 250,000 is an outright grant and the balance Rs. 200,000 is recoverable in monthly instalments from the wages of the families, the Deputy Minister said.

The Ministry of Estate Infrastructure Development was created in 1997 exclusively for the explicit purpose of mainstreaming the community into the development process through a multifaceted intervention program in the plantation sector. The facility of separate ministries for the said purpose were provided by the successive UPFA Governments led by President Rajapaksa, the Deputy Minister said.

As a result considerable progress in the process of coordinating all functions relevant for the development of the economic and social infrastructure of the community was achieved. Projects on providing clean drinking water, electricity, rehabilitation of schools with additional facilities, improvement of the standard of education, better health and sanitation facilities and construction of roads have also been successfully implemented, he said. Employment opportunities to a large number of educated plantation youth were provided including the appointment of over 300 teachers, he said.

Of the estimated requirement of 150,000 new houses for the plantation families, in place of the existing line room-dwellings, over 10,000 twin/independent housing units have already been completed and 5,000 are now in the process of being completed under the ongoing projects, the Deputy Minister said, adding that funds will be allocated for construction of more houses under the program.