Construction has commenced on a four-storey Medical Ward Complex at the District General Hospital in Mullaitivu, financed entirely by a Rs. 600 million grant from the Government of India, the Indian High Commission in Colombo confirmed.
The project executes a Memorandum of Understanding signed during the April 19–20 state visit of Indian Vice President C.P. Radhakrishnan to Sri Lanka. The MoU was exchanged by Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha and Acting Secretary of Health W.K. Wickremasinghe.
The Mullaitivu complex will house lifts, air-conditioning, fire-protection systems, generators, UPS facilities and piped medical gas supply, according to the High Commission. Officials said the design is intended to step up screening for non-communicable diseases among residents over 35 and reduce the number of patient referrals out of the district. The hospital’s bed occupancy is projected to rise by more than 150% once the complex is operational.
The grant falls under India’s bilateral High Impact Community Development Project (HICDP) framework, through which 18 people-centric grant projects are currently underway across 25 districts of Sri Lanka. The portfolio spans housing, health, education, fisheries, transport, renewable energy, livelihoods and agriculture.
The Mullaitivu ward complex follows other ongoing Indian-backed projects in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, including a 145-house phase of the Indian housing scheme handed over during the same Radhakrishnan visit. It also slots into a wider hospital-investment cycle that includes a domestic plan to develop the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital into Sri Lanka’s fourth national hospital with a Rs. 20 billion budget.
Source: Newswire — India-funded Rs. 600 million medical ward complex work begins in Mullaitivu.
