Thursday, May 17, 2012
The government has decided to grant loans to the 11,000 rehabilitated ex-LTTE combatants to engage in self-employment projects, Rehabilitation Authority chairman E A Samarasinghe said.
The chairman told the Daily News that the Treasury has allocated Rs 300 million on the direction of President Mahinda Rajapaksa toward the first first phase of this initiative scheduled to commence in July.
He said there are around 11,000 male and female rehabilitated ex - LTTE combatants altogether.
They have been given vocational training according to their choice and this measure is taken to turn their acquired skills into a productive livlihood. He added that the loan recipients are given a grace period of one year to commence repaying their loans.
He also stated that the government is taking measures to provide each of these ex - LTTE combatants a loan to re commence their once mis guided lives and join the government's efforts to make the country the Wonder of Asia.
Each candidate will be given a loan of Rs 250,000.
Samarasinghe further said the government has already granted loans to 3,000 needy persons in the North and East who were affected by the conflict to commence self employment projects.
The government allocated Rs 324 million for this purpose. He added that though those people were given a grace period of one year many of them have commenced to repay their loans before the laps of the year.
He said they monitor the development of the trade of the loan recipients by visiting them frequently and they found the progress of more than 90 percent of the loan recipients was remarkably positive.
He added that they had initiated small scale industries, carpentry, poultry farming, computer classes etc.
He also stated that two people had set up two mini cinema halls with the loan.
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