REEL houses for low income families

By L. S. A. Wedaarachchi

Four housing projects consisting of 2,500 houses will be constructed in the City by the REEL Company under the Ministry of Urban Development and Sacred area Development.

Work on the first housing project at Bloemendhal Road Colombo 13 will commence shortly.

A Malaysian construction company Jetson will manage the project and it will be financed by the Capital Investment Bank of Malaysia the chairman REEL, Bennet Cooray said.

The Finance Ministry and the Urban Development Ministry have approved the project which is scheduled to be completed within three years.

One-thousand houses out of 2,500 will be given to dwellers in urban areas who have left their slums and shanties paving the way for the construction of the REEL housing projects.

The remaining 1,500 houses will be for sale. The houses will be over six-hundred square feet. The REEL Company will construct the houses for 20,000 families who live in the slums and shanties in the Colombo city under the Palen Mandira program which commenced under the patronage of President Mahinda Rajapaksa on February last year. It was presented to the city dwellers on January 11, 2007.

The Chairman said 70 percent of the urban population live in the Colombo city and 50 percent of them live in slums, shanties or flats. It is estimated that the number of families facing enormous difficulties, living in the Colombo city are sixty-five thousand, he said.

The Reel housing projects which are being approved as BOI projects will be handled by foreign investors.

An Austrian investor will undertake construction of the Borella housing project which will consist of 1,500, houses.

The housing projects at St. Sebastian and Vajiragnana in Maradana and Palangastuduwa in Borella are BOI approved projects.