The 21st model village constructed in Sri Lanka with grant assistance from the Government of India was handed over to beneficiaries in Polonnaruwa on Friday.Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha and Deputy Minister of Housing, Construction and Water Supply T.B. Sarath jointly inaugurated and handed over 24 houses at the “Suhada Gama” Model Village.

Speaker of Parliament Jagath Wickramarathna also attended the ceremony.The Model Village Housing Project is being implemented across all 25 districts in partnership with Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Housing, Construction and Water Supply. An agreement for the project was signed between Sri Lanka and India in October 2017.

The initiative will provide houses to 600 low-income families, with 24 houses constructed in each district. Beneficiaries are selected by the respective District Housing Committees.Model villages have already been handed over in 20 districts, including Jaffna, Batticaloa, Vavuniya, Kandy, Colombo, Anuradhapura and Trincomalee.

According to the Indian High Commission in Colombo, the overall project is now approximately 98.5% complete, with the remaining four model villages expected to be handed over soon.District parliamentarians and officials from the National Housing Development Authority and the Polonnaruwa district administration also attended the event.