Prime Minister establishes Palmyra Fund to accelerate north-east development

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that 22,000 graduates will be recruited to accelerate the development of the general public who are faced with various hardships due to socio-economic problems.

Speaking at an event held at the Temple Trees to establish the Palmyra Development Fund for north east development, the Premier said a significant number of these graduate recruits will be used to serve the people of the north and east who were being deprived of a proper development process due to various reasons.

He said the Palmyrah Development Fund was established with the purpose of accelerating the development tasks of the north and east with the recruitment of young officers.

The Prime Minister said that the present Government has undertaken a major responsibility to develop the country and the Palmyra Fund was being launched to develop areas in the North and East affected by the war.

Special appeals were made to set aside funds for development of the two Provinces. The Premier has proposed to launch this Fund particularly for development of these regions. The government has taken steps to set aside Rs. 50 billion as capital expenditure while Rs. 7 billion is allocated under the Gamperaliya program.

Explaining the fund’s history, the Prime Minister pointed out that this was initiated by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera with Rs. 2.5 billion from the funds allocated from the last budget. Sri Lankans living overseas understood the benefits of this fund to uplift the region have donated another Rs. 2.5 billion and the fund has become Rs. 5 billion now.

Under this fund it is planned to accelerate development including improvements to infrastructure in the region including new construction of 2,000 houses. Funds for these areas are being provided under Enterprises Sri Lanka.

The Prime Minister said that it should be a priority action to spend all funds allocated for development programs from the budget.

He said the Government hopes to accomplish a large amount of work this year and allocations have also been made for other parts of the country.

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera, expressing his views said that so far Sri Lanka’s development process has targeted specific areas of the country but the goal is to implement a special development process with the intention of creating a uniform development for each region according to a fixed plan.

Non Cabinet Minister Dr. Harsha de Silva, State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran TNA leader Parliamentarian R. Sampanthan and many other people’s representatives attended the event.