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Over 200 Kajeemawatte residents not eligible to receive houses from state

17 Oct 2022

A total of 214 residents of the Modara, Madampitiya, and Kajeemawatte housing complexes that were recently burnt down have been identified as not meeting the minimum qualifications required to obtain a house. This was stated in a report submitted by the Urban Development Authority to the Secretary of the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing regarding the Kajeemawatta fire incident. Accordingly, the report further stated that it is not possible to provide housing to these families in line with the approval policies under the Urban Revitalisation Project. The Kajeemawatta housing complex, which caught fire, belongs to the National Housing Development Authority, and is about five acres in size. According to the related report, Kajeemawatta was handed over to the Urban Development Authority on a temporary basis to run an intermediate camp under the initial urban revitalisation project in 2011 until permanent houses were provided to the families residing on those lands. When the Urban Development Authority released land for the construction of apartment complexes, displaced families were temporarily settled in Kajeemawatta. The number of settled families was 275, and they were subsequently provided alternative housing. After that, on several occasions, about 50 family units were settled in this intermediate camp, while around 291 unauthorised families were settled in this land due to political intervention, as per the report. It was also mentioned in the report that after the 2015 Presidential Election, people from different areas had been illegally settled here on several occasions due to political interference. However, the urban revitalisation project implemented that year removed all the squatters from Kajeemawatta and freed the land completely.  


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