All the 489 families affected by the Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project have been resettled in modern housing units. Many of them were living in thin-roofed line rooms with no separate kitchen or bathroom.

The Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project has given a great impetus to raise the living standards and the social status of the people in the Talawakelle area. The infrastructure and housing Development in and around the Talawakele town depict the Government effort to raise the life standards and social status of the people.

There had been 489 families residing in the Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project Area prior to the project commencement. In fulfilling the Government’s promise to provide them with better housing facilities, 489 modern housing units have been constructed by the project and all affected people have been settled.

These families had been in nine settlements in the project area viz: Kumaragama with 61 families. Devisiripura with 20 families, Talawakele with 160 families, Ratneelakele with 117 families, Middlton Bar with 26 families, Middleton Division with 17 families, Walkers with 28 families, U.C. scavengers with 39 families, and Nanuoya Division with 21 families.

The 489 families are now settled six settlements with housing units built under five categories allocated to them on the basis of floor areas they used to occupy in their previous settlements.

The houses are provided with pipe borne water facility and electricity supplies. Each housing unit occupies a land area ranging from 7 to 10 perches. Many of the occupants have taken to home gardening in their new dwellings. To compensate those who were growing vegetables in the previous settlement areas 42 plots of land have been provided to them to grow vegetables. Two cooperative shops have also been established.

A group of media personnel visited these housing units yesterday, organized by the Media Centre for National Development of the Ministry of Mass Media and Information.

Residents interviewed by the media groups expressed their happiness about getting such modern housing units, which some of them said they could have never built or dreamt of having on their own, and were grateful to President Mahinda Rajapaksa for undertaking to build the Upper Kotmale Project which had been almost abandoned due to political expediency and other reasons.

About 75 percent of the resettled are Tamils and the rest 22 percent are Sinhalese and 3 percent Muslims. The Project has also constructed three new Kovils, and two Christian Churches to replace those affected by the project acquisition.