789,242 Lankan families without permanent houses

There are 789,242 families without permanent houses in Sri Lanka, State Minister of Urban Development and Housing Thenuka Vidanagamage, told Parliament on Thursday.

He said this in response to a question posed by Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MP, Rajika Wickramasinghe for an oral answer.

He added that there are 278,192 temporary houses. There are also 44,419 houses with thatched roofs, he said. There are also 216,197 families without a house, or a land, while there are 166,841 families with a land but without a house. 83,593 are living on rent.

Puttalam, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Kurunegala, Nuwara Eliya, Ratnapura, Kandy and Badulla are the areas where the problem is acute, Vidanagamage said.

He added that the government has not made arrangements to provide permanent roofing sheets for those houses in the near future due to the non-availability of funds.