The special secretary of Development Partnership Administration P S Raghavan has said that the pilot project for construction of 1,000 houses for internally displaced persons in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka is completed.
Delivering a special address during the Madras Management Association (MMA) Awards function and 57th annual general meeting of MMA recently, Raghavan, who led a high-level Monitoring Committee from Ministry of External Affairs to monitor the reconstruction work in Sri Lanka, said that the second phase of the housing project under the owner–driven model for construction or repair of 43,000 houses in the Northern and Eastern Provinces was progressing smoothly.
He said that there was a degree of satisfaction among beneficiaries, local community and other stakeholders with the implementation mechanism put in place by the two governments.
“The project is way ahead of plan and people are accepting the project,” he said. Responding to a query on how fair was the project following allegations of Tamils being discriminated in Sri Lanka, Raghavan said that there was a rigorous selection process for beneficiaries. “It is ensured that the beneficiaries are Tamils only,” he said.
He refused to talk about the political rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka, stating that the primary focus was on dealing with rehabilitation of the displaced people.
Raghavan also said the work on multi-million dollar Salma Dam Project, which was one of the two big projects India undertook in Afghanistan, apart from the Parliament building, was proceeding under difficult circumstances.
The project, which will meet energy and irrigation requirement of Western Afghanistan, with a capacity of producing 42Mw of power and irrigating 75,000 hectares of land, is progressing on a difficult terrain. “At times the workers will be caught in the firing between Afghan troops and rebels but work goes on,” said Raghavan.
The Development Administration Partnership (DPA) was created in the Ministry of External Affairs in January 2012 to effectively handle India’s aid projects.
Earlier, Raghavan along with D Shivakumar, president of All India Management Association and senior vice-president Nokia, presented MMA awards to Rane (Madras) Ltd in the manufacturing category, Sundaram Finance Ltd for the services category, Adtech Systems Ltd, Trivandrum for the small and medium enterprises category and National Institute of Technology, Tiruchy in educational institutions category.
The aim of the award is to promote sound management ideas, knowledge, experience and practices in various disciplines.