The handing over ceremony of the newly constructed 30 houses at Senehase Gammanaya at Aranayaka will be held this afternoon with the presence of the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Mass Media, Gayantha Karunathilake, Minister of Disaster Management, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Minister of Power and Renewable Energy, Ranjith Siyabalapitiya, Minister of Public Enterprise Development, Kabir Hashim, State Minister of Defence, Ruwan Wijewardene, Chief Minister of Sbaragamuwa Province, Maheepala Herath, Deputy Media Minister, Parliamentary Affairs, Karunarathna Paranawithana, Former Deputy Minister of Irrigation, Lalith Dissanayake, Member of the Divisional Coordinating Committee, Wimal Jayasinghe, Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Eng. Karunasena Hettiarachchi, Secretary, Minister of City Planning and Water Supply, Sarath Chandrasiri Vithana, Additional Secretary Administration, Ministry of Defence,W A Kulasooriya, District Secretary/GA, Kagalle District Chandrasiri Bandara, Commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force, Western Province area Commander, Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe, Regional CEO – Axiata Group Dr. Hans Wijesuriya,, Group Chief Executive, Dialog Axiata PLC, Supun Weerasinghe, Chairman - SLRC Ravi Jayawardene, Chairman - SLBC, Nanda Muruththettugama, Chairman - ANCL, Kavan Ratnayaka , GM, ANCL, Abaya Amaradasa, Divisional Secretary of Aranayake, Z A M Faizal, and other distinguished guests.
‘Senehe Siyapatha’ is an initiative of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited, the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Parliamentary Reforms and Mass Media, Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and the Disaster Management Centre.
Work commenced on the Third Phase with the laying of the foundation stone for the ‘Senehe Siyapatha Gammanaya’ in Aranayake on 29 October last year, to house families displaced by the disaster. The Sri Lankan Army, Navy and Air Force provided free labour and equipment to build the 30 houses, and the construction was supervised by Sierra Construction, while the project was managed by Dialog Axiata PLC.
The houses are constructed as per specifications given by the NBRO (National Building Research Organisation) under the aegis of the Ministry of Disaster Management, a leading Research and Development institution in the country and a reputed technical services provider in the fields of geotechnical engineering, landslide risk management, human settlements planning, environmental monitoring, building materials research, and engineering project management.
Under the first phase of its activity, the ‘Senehe Siyapatha’ initiative donated 50 water pumps worth Rs. 1.6 million to the Disaster Management Centre to aid immediate flood relief efforts. Under the second phase of its activity, footwear worth over Rs. 8 million was distributed to more than ten thousand children in 32 schools in the Colombo and Gampaha districts.