Less than 1% of rural infrastructure spending in Tamil areas

The Sri Lankan government’s own figures reveal that from a total budget of $10m (Rs 1214 million) earmarked for rural infrastructure development, only Rs12 million was spent in the seven Tamil speaking districts.
 
Over half the total budget was spent in three southern Sinhala majority districts.  
 
(See details on p29 of the government's 'Fiscal Management Report - 2010')
 
President Mahinda Rajapakse’s home district of Hambantota received the largest allocation (Rs 408 million), while the second highest went to Kurunegala (Rs157 million) ,with Matara the third largest beneficiary (Rs128 million).
 
Of the 1% allocated to the seven war-shattered Tamil districts, Jaffna received Rs 7 million, Vavuniya Rs 3 million, Mannar Rs 1 million and Trincomalee Rs 1 million.
 
Nothing was spent on rural infrastructure in the districts of Mullaitivu, Killinochi and Batticaloa.
 
For all the hype about ‘Eastern Awakening’ and ‘Northern Spring’, the Sinhala-dominated government constructed a magnificent total of 7.32 km of rural roads in the Tamil speaking areas - out of a total for the island of 533.73km.

Add new comment

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button