Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Housing for shanty dwellers, land for commercial purposes: UDA debenture gets Rs 8.5 b

Harshini Perera

The Urban Development Authority (UDA) debenture issue received applications worth Rs 8.5 billion as at yesterday. The debenture applications have been received mainly from institutions such as banks and insurance companies, Bank of Ceylon Investment Deputy General Manager P A Lionel told Daily News Business.

It is expected to set up a housing project of 65,000 housing units for persons living in unauthorized lands in the Colombo city with this debenture.

The total number of applications received as at September 24 is 57. The number of applications of which payments were made by bank drafts and cheques was 53. The number of payments made by bank guarantees is four as informed by the Bank of Ceylon to the Colombo Stock Exchange.

Colombo Stock Exchange trading will commence after the allocation of debenture shares to the public.

The UDA has decided to utilize the debenture in two ways in which it will gain productive results for slum dwellers in the Colombo city. The first method is to build housing units by the UDA with an allocated funds from the debenture. Simultaneously, UDA will engage in a number of other projects with the balance money of the debenture.

The contribution from the UDA will be 10 percent for these projects of which the rest will be borne by foreign parties as a loan to the UDA, UDA Chairman Janaka Kurukulasuriya told Daily News Business.

“We have already identified land for construction of housing units in Mattakkuliya and Borella and some land outside Colombo city such as Ekala and Muthurajawela. The land in Muthurajawela is 50 acres in extent and we have already quoted tenders for 500 units,” Kurukulasuriya said.

source - www.dailynews.lk

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