TATA housing project in Sri Lanka to have a fresh start

TATA Housing's one of its kind USD 400 million project here will have a fresh start, after they ran into problem, the new Sri Lankan government announced today.
"The government has decided to recommence the whole project from the very beginning", Cabinet spokesman and Minister of Health Rajitha Senaratne said.
In May 2014 the first phase of the project was launched to build a four tower apartment block with 650 units in the Slave Island business district of Colombo.
"All residents who had lost land and houses will get equal of bigger housing in the apartment block. He said all house owners' consent had been obtained, former UDA chairman Nimal Perera said.

The project pioneered by the government's Urban Development Authority (UDA) ran into problems with low income residents at the location.
"The first of its kind initiative by an Indian real estate company will involve investments of over USD 400 million," Tata Housing, a subsidiary of Tata Sons had said in a statement last year.

The project was launched on a three acre area out of a total of 8 acres which has been released from the families.
Other projects by the UDA have also come under fire for making slum dwellers, including poor ones who had been displaced involuntarily through state action.

The Colombo project is mixed use township.
In a stunning verdict last month Sri Lankan voters ousted President Mahinda Rajapaksa from power, ending a 10-year rule that was marked by allegations of family rule, corruption and authoritarianism and chose in his place his one-time minister Maithripala Sirisena, who has vowed to deliver promised change.