Minister of Prison Reforms, Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Hindu Religious Affairs D.M Swaminathan said that 435.58 million rupees out of a total of 574 million rupees have been released so far by the Ministry as allocations for high impact projects in the Jaffna district for 2016.

Speaking at a discussion yesterday on the development work carried out in the Northern Province, Swaminathan said that these allocations have been provided for the construction of the bridge cum causeway across sea between Kayts and Karainagar, construction of boats and jetties, seaweed farming, renovation of roads, livelihood income generation opportunities and several other projects.

In 2016 a further allocation of 8,292 million rupees has been given by the Ministry to construct 10,365 houses in the Northern Province, and several other war affected districts such as Batticaloa, Puttalam, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura, the Minister said.

The discussion was also attended by MPs Douglas Devananda, E. Saravanapavan, Sivasakthy Ananthan, Kader Masthan, S. Shritharan and Charles Nirmalanathan representing the Northern Province.