SRI LANKA COUNTRY PROFILE

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CHAPTER 7: PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE HUMAN SETTLEMENT DEVELOPMENT 18 CP2002-SRI LANKA PAGE 18 Of 106 Decision-Making: The main decision making authority for formulating policies and strategies related to human settlement development rests on a number of ministries but most vital decisions are taken by the Ministry of Urban Development, Housing and Construction. The two main formulating and implementing agencies in the ministries are the Urban Development Authority (UDA) and the National Housing Development Authority (NHDA). The UDA promotes integrated planning and implementation of economic, social and physical development of urban areas while the NHDA formulates programmes for housing and infrastructure development. Other Government Institutions whose decisions directly or indirectly affect human settlements include: the Irrigation Department; Central Environment Authority; Land Settlement Department; Mahaweli Authority; Resettlement and Rehabilitation Authority; Sri Lanka Land Reclamation; and Development Corporation. Generally in the construction of houses and other buildings decision making is in the hands of thousands of individuals. Their decisions depend on a number of factors such as location, price, affordability, availability and accessibility and the cost of building construction. As a result, there is an unplanned and haphazard conversion of prime agricultural land and wetlands, extension of urban sprawl, encroachment and squatting on environmentally sensitive areas. Decision making in urban low income settlements has gradually been shifted to Community Based Organizations (CBOs) through social mobilization and empowerment. Programmes and Projects: Actions and measures adopted since 1990 include a number of housing programmes. The most ambitious housing project was the launching of the 1.5 Million Houses Project in 1990 by the NHDA. It was a nation wide project and comprised 11 sub-projects for urban and rural areas including housing for the Mahaweli project area and major irrigation settlements and for plantations. Seven other sub projects were for the private sector (formal and informal), special 1000 houses (direct construction), for disaster housing, Provincial Councils housing, Cooperative housing and housing for employees. The objective was to improve the existing housing stock. By the end of 1994, only 57 % (nearly 859,000 families) of the target had been achieved. In 1995, an island-wide housing programme was introduced called Janaudana, which focuses on lower and lower middle classes. This is a sites and services project which provides assistance to construct 100 houses in each electorate while the Government provides access roads and other infrastructure facilities. By the end of 2001, a total of 39,985 houses had been constructed. Other projects aimed at the lower and lower middle classes are the Scattered Loans and Grants Project, Serviced land plots, Urban Relocation Projects, Direct Construction, Urban Development and Low Income Housing Project (Clean Settlements Project, 1998). The most recent, is the Sustainable Townships Programme whose aim is to provide urban low income communities residing in ‘under served’ settlements in Colombo with serviced flats with titles and to liberate prime land occupied by these communities for other urban activities. Other measures to provide adequate land and housing as indicated in the Sri Lanka Country Report for Istanbul +5 (Ministry of Urban Development, Housing and Construction, 2000) include the following: the provision of State lands owned by the NHDA at 50% of the market value to Government employees, artists, scientists etc; the provision of State lands owned by the Land Commissioner to low income families and the supply of building materials to low income families. Another significant step has been to encourage private property developers to invest in housing for middle and lower middle income groups. Some of the incentives and concessions include: granting of 7-10 year tax holidays; duty free imports; reduction of Stamp duties; and the provision of State owned land to BOI approved property developers at concessionary rates. Credit is a major constraint to housing development. Some of the attempts have been made to solve this problem as indicated in the above Sri Lanka report are the mobilization of the Employees Trust Fund and the Employees Provident Fund in the housing finance market; mobilization of more resources from the NHDA, Provincial Councils and cooperatives; establishment of the Housing Development Finance Corporation; establishment of the Employees Housing Fund and the introduction of the secondary mortgage market system; reduction of interest rates by the NHDA from 20.5% to 10%-15% for low income house builders; reduction of interest rates by Commercial banks from 19% to 15%. A
19 CP2002-SRI LANKA PAGE 19 Of 106 number of remedial and preventive measures to reduce adverse environmental impacts of rapid urban, industrial and population growth in human settlements have been undertaken. The steps taken so far in the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR) include the implementation of the Metropolitan Environment Improvement Project; Colombo Environment Improvement Project; Greater Colombo Flood Control and Environment Improvement Project; Greater Colombo Waste Water and Sanitation Master Plan; Wetlands Conservation Project and Clean Air 2000 Action Plan. The Colombo Metropolitan Structure Plan attempts to address some of the major human settlement issues in the CMR (Urban Development Authority, 1998). Status: Since detailed information on housing at the Census of 2001 is not available, this analysis is based on a sample survey conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics in 1994. A considerable improvement in the housing sector can be observed between 1981 and 1994. The average size of a household had declined from 5.2 to 4.5. Structural quality of houses has improved and the proportion of permanent houses increased from 47.8 to 66.5 per cent during this period. The percentage of houses that had toilets for exclusive use and water sealed and flush toilets had also increased from 52.8 and 26.9 to 76.0 and 63.4 respectively. Further, there has been an increase in the floor area and number of rooms. Another significant fact is that an overwhelming majority (79 per cent) of housing is owner-occupied. Despite the fact that improvements have taken place in the housing sector within the past 3 decades, the city of Colombo still faces a major shelter problem since nearly 50 per cent of the houses are classed as ‘under served’ dwellings that do not possess adequate water, sanitation and waste disposal facilities. There were 150,000 such dwellings in the CMR and 66,021 in Colombo (Clean Settlements Project 1998). In other urban settlements the problem is not as acute as in Colombo (PADCO, 1998). Apart from the above issues, the urban settlements on the whole are faced with problems associated with the lack of continuous supply of water on tap, the inadequacy or the absence of a piped sewerage system and facilities for waste management, frequent floods, land slides, air and water pollution (PADCO, 1998, UDA, 2000). Due to population growth, urbanization and colonization, the extent of land under human settlements-both urban and rural, has increased from 13.4 per cent in 1981 to 23.65 per cent. It is estimated that by 2030, (if unplanned) human settlements would spread over as much as 30.0 per cent of the land area of Sri Lanka. A major set back for planning for sustainable development of human settlements in the absence of a suitable definition of urban settlements. The current definition accepts only 53 centers as urban settlements. This leads to the neglect of fast developing former towns, rapidly changing villages or urban settlements near cities and emerging towns in other parts of the country. The UDA is drawing up development planes for major urban areas but constraints have been identified during implementation (PADCO, 1998). According to the official definition, only those settlements that are administrated by Municipal and Urban Councils are accepted as urban settlements while all the remaining settlements are classified as rural. At the Census of Population, 2001, 38,259 settlements have been designated as ‘rural.’ They are of diverse origins and perform different functions. As a result of incorporating the Town Council areas in the rural administrative divisions called Pradeshiya Sabhas in 1987, the number of urban settlements has declined from 134 at the Census of 1981 to 53 in 2001. See also under Programmes and Projects . Capacity-Building, Education, Training and Awareness-Raising: The need for sustainable human settlements and related issues have been taught as a part of the undergraduate curriculum in almost all the Departments of Geography, Estate Management, Town and Country Planning and Architecture in Sri Lankan Universities. Lectures are conducted and research on related subjects by postgraduate students reading for the MA, M Phil, M Sc and Ph D Degrees and by senior lecturers and professors. The new M Sc course in Human Security introduced by the Department of Geography at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura includes modules related to settlement issues. Capacity building is undertaken by a number of Institutions. For example the Institute for Construction, Training and Development (ICTAD) provides skills training required for local authorities. The National Building and Research Organization (NBRO) is involved with research and training for the building industry. Through Community Action Planning (CAP), the urban low income communities have been empowered and able to participate actively in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of projects.
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