As part of its development partnership with Sri Lanka and in response to requirements projected by the Government of Sri Lanka, the Government of India is undertaking a project to construct a 200-bed ward complex at District Hospital, Vavuniya. A contract agreement in this connection was entered into by the High Commission of India with M/s Wahid Constructions today.The Project will be implemented under full grant assistance of the Government of India amounting to SLR 200million.

The Project for construction of a ward complex at District Hospital, Vavuniya, was submitted by the Ministry of Health & Indigenous Medicine through the Department of External Resources in February 2012.The Project envisages construction of a four-storey ward complex to improve the existing infrastructure of the Hospital to meet the growing demand for better treatment facilities. The Project will be implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, Government of Sri Lanka, and the Ministry of Indigenous Medicine, Northern Province, and is expected to be completed by February 2014.The construction of the 200-bed ward complex at Vavuniya will cater to the medical care needs of in-patients admitted to the Hospital from Vavuniya and adjoining districts.

India has been providing assistance on priority to improve the Health sector in Sri Lanka.The Government of India had supplied high valued critical medical equipment for the Jaffna Teaching Hospital in January 2011 and to the District Hospitals at Kilinochchi and Mullaiteevu in January 2012 at a cost SLR 230 million.India is also constructing a 150-bed base hospital at Dickoya in the Central Province at a cost of SLR 1.2 billion which will be fully functional by April 2013.The Government of India has also announced a gift of a ‘Bhabatron’ Telecobalt Radiotherapy Machine to the Government of Sri Lanka, which is to be installed at the General Hospital in Hambantota.

India has been supporting projects for rehabilitation, resettlement and well-being of displaced persons in the Northern Province in the areas of shelter (through donation of roofing sheets & cement bags and reconstruction & repair of houses under the Indian Housing Project for 50,000 houses), health-care (providing emergency medical relief, organizing artificial limbs refitment camps and equipping hospitals), livelihood generation (provision of fishing equipment, tractors, bicycles, trishaws, agricultural equipment and seeds), education (repairs of 79 schools, distribution ofcomputers & printers to schools, establishing nenashalas, supply of buses to educational institutions and setting up of vocational training centres) and infrastructure development (restoration of Northern Railway lines, rehabilitation of Palaly Airport and KKS Harbour).

Colombo