City should be safe for both people and animals: PM
– A city should be a safe and secure place for everyone, including animals, and urban development should not be limited to the construction of concrete buildings, Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya said yesterday.Addressing the inauguration of the “Life Cities” development program in Colombo, the Prime Minister said cities should be developed by taking into consideration the needs, rights and security of the people living in them.
She said the program was being implemented under the Government’s “Prosperous Country – Beautiful Life” policy and the Budget proposal on adopting a new approach to urban development.“People’s lives do not become beautiful simply by constructing concrete buildings. The Colombo District is the best example of this,” she said.The Prime Minister said cities in Sri Lanka had expanded in an irregular manner and that previous attempts to beautify cities had sometimes resulted in people being removed from urban areas.
She said 44.5% of Sri Lanka’s population lives in informal settlements and stressed the need for a more inclusive approach to urban development.“When we talk about traditional villages and cities, the city is very complex and diverse. It is wrong to develop a city on the basis that it belongs only to one section. The city belongs to everyone,” she said.Dr. Amarasuriya also highlighted the importance of using a transparent scoring system when selecting cities for the Life Cities program.She said every city had its own identity and that its development should take into account access to services and the quality of those services.“A city is not a concrete jungle. The people living in the city, as well as animals, are also part of that city. We must create cities where all of them are safe,” she said.
She expressed confidence that the Life Cities development program would take these factors into consideration.
first phase covers Matara, Batticaloa, Matale, Vavuniya, Badulla, Jaffna, Chilaw, Hatton, Thalawa and Eheliyagoda.