System for implementation of housing projects for resettlement in northern province of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka is one of under developing Asian country. After a long period of armed conflict ended up it got opportunity to develop the country to become a “Wonder of Asia”. Especially infrastructure development for resettled people in Northern Province (NP) of Sri Lanka is a big challenge to Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). Under the Infrastructure Development, GoSL faces lot of problems and issues to facilitate shelter for each and every resettled family. There are three major housing projects namely North East Housing Reconstruction Programme (NEHRP), UN Habitat and Indian Housing Projects implemented in Northern Province of Sri Lanka. Under these housing projects, there are problems faced by implementing partners as well as beneficiaries too. In this study problems were considered in two stages of housing projects namely Before Construction Period (BCP) and During Construction Period (DCP). Hence there is a need to propose a framework to identify the suitable system for implementation of housing projects for resettlement in NP of Sri Lanka. Therefore this study develops the approach by identifying problems, causes and roles of stakeholders who are involving housing projects to solve identified problems. The research was approached through a mixed research approach, which comprised of qualitative data collected by semi structured interviews and quantitative data collected by structured questionnaire. Relative Important Index and Spearman Rank Correlation were used in the data analysis. Based on the findings, a suitable system consisting two frameworks developed to identify the problems, causes and the solutions in the stages of BCP and DCP of housing Projects for resettlement in NP of Sri Lanka. The use of these frameworks are recommended for the awareness of beneficiaries in order to keep land documents and ensure the ownership of their land as well as proper utilization of grant funds. Further Implementing Partners must conduct awareness programme on importance of land documents and fund utilization. Respective Authorities should consider the issue of land documents in this regard.