Jaffna to regain grandeur soon - Mayor

M. P. Muttiah

Jaffna Mayor Yogeswari Patkunarajah said the city would regain its grandeur very soon.

She added that all roads were opened and checkpoints had been withdrawn. However, people in certain areas wanted them to continue for security reasons, the Mayor said.

Patkunarajah said 600 Tamil policemen were being trained and these checkpoints would also be removed after the policemen are posted to various police stations in the district. She said the UNOPS provided assistance to repair roads in Jaffna’s coastal areas. The work would begin next week.

The Mayor said that as the rainy season had started, there was an urgent need to keep the city clean. For the first time in three decades, the city would be cleaned with the co-operation and assistance of Jaffna Municipal Council Members and full-time employees. She added that 25 kilometres of road would be widened.

The UN organization IOM had agreed to provide facilities for re-cycling organic, inorganic and plastic materials. In this regard, a meeting of IOM officials with Social Services and Social Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda was held recently.

Mayor Patkunarajah said India and Japan would provide 25 ploughing machines. They would be distributed among the 25 local government bodies in the district. This was decided at a meeting with Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister Janaka Bandara Tennekoon, she added.

She said that after 30 years, the city began to rebuild its old grandeur again.