A housing scheme built for families who lost their homes in the 2023 Kabaragala Mountain landslide was handed over to residents in Poonagala, Bandarawela, on Friday morning, under the patronage of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
The ‘Navodayapuram’ project provides 50 houses, Ada Derana reported. The handover ceremony was held at the grounds of Poonagala Tamil Maha Vidyalaya, according to Hiru News, which cited the President’s Media Division.
What the families receive
Each house is valued at close to Rs. 3.2 million and has two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom, the Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure said in remarks reported by NewsFirst.
The 50 units each measure 550 square feet and stand on 10-perch plots. NewsFirst reported the houses were handed over fully furnished.
Which disaster, and where
The three newsrooms describe the qualifying disaster slightly differently. Ada Derana attributed the displacement specifically to the landslide at Kabaragala Mountain in Poonagala, Bandarawela, in 2023. NewsFirst gave a wider catchment, listing families who lost homes in landslides in the Badulla, Haldummulla, Poonagala and Kabaragala areas that year. Hiru described the beneficiaries as 50 families from the Poonagala–Kabaragala area.
The project name also varies: Ada Derana and NewsFirst render it ‘Navodayapuram’, while Hiru uses the Sinhala form ‘Navodayagama’. Poonagala is an up-country estate settlement in the Badulla District with a substantial Tamil plantation community, and the venue chosen for the ceremony reflects that.
Sri Lanka’s plantation districts carry long-standing landslide exposure, and permanent rehousing after a slope failure has typically run years behind the event. Friday’s handover comes close to three years after the Kabaragala slide.
None of the three reports named the total cost of the scheme, the agency that built it, or whether further phases are planned.
