President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has directed officials to complete temporary housing for the roughly 500 families still living in displacement camps following Cyclone Ditwah, with construction to be finished by the end of May.
Housing, Construction and Water Supply Minister Dr. Susil Ranasinghe said the displaced families remain across approximately 20 main camps located primarily in three districts, NewsFirst reported.
The directive narrows the focus of the government’s relief programme to a specific resettlement deadline, five months after the November 2025 cyclone caused an estimated USD 4.1 billion in damage and displaced more than 2.2 million people. The Defence Ministry separately tasked the Sri Lanka Army last weekend with building 1,000 interim shelters across Kegalle, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Badulla from the first week of May.
A parallel cash-compensation track is also live: Dissanayake earlier ordered Rs. 500,000 partial-home compensation payments to reach all eligible beneficiaries by end-May, except in exceptional cases. The Army shelters and the cash payments are designed to close the camp population to zero before the southwest monsoon intensifies.
The government has been under pressure on the Ditwah response, with the Met Department director-general appearing before a parliamentary committee on the early-warning failures, and the OCHA flash appeal funding gap hampering reconstruction.
Source: NewsFirst.
