Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa said today his government was keen to take development deep into the country’s northern and eastern provinces that were earlier held by the LTTE. “The development work which most people said is limited only to Colombo is now being taken to north and east,” Rajapaksa said while inaugurating a water project in the eastern Batticaloa district’’s Vavunathivu area. The President was seeking to dispel suggestions that his government had not done enough to rebuild the war-torn areas even two years after the war ended. Rajapaksa said his government would treat the people of the north and east at par with people from other regions of the country. Elsewhere in the eastern province, the President’s brother and economic development minister Basil Rajapaksa declared open five bridges rebuilt after the devastation of war that lasted over three decades. Rajapaksa’s government, since the end to the separatist conflict in May 2009, has laid emphasis on economic development as means to end the unrest in the north and east. His government has, however, faced criticism over its slow pace of action to end the political impasse through a political arrangement. The government has now convened a parliamentary select committee to run parallel with its talks with the main Tamil party, TNA in order to formulate a political package for north and east, PTI reports.
