Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-09-26

Eviction of encroachers in the land of the Kandy Hospital by providing housing facilities for the Development of the General Hospital of Kandy

- The Kandy Teaching Hospital with 2,402 beds is the second largest hospital in Sri Lanka. The limitation of space has become a major obstacle for the future development activities of this hospital which provides treatment to around 1,600,000 patients annually. Although the extent of land belonging to the hospital is 58.4 acres and as a result of an extent of 23.7 acres being occupied by the encroachers, the development of facilities within the premises have been hampered. Accordingly, the joint proposal made by Hon. (Dr.) Sarath Amunugama, the Minister of Special Assignments,Hon. S.B. Dissanayake, the Minister of Social Empowerment, Welfare and Kandyan Heritage, Hon. (Dr.) Rajitha Senaratne, the Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, Hon. Sajith Premadasa, the Minister of Housing and Construction, Hon. Malik Samarawickrema, the Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade, for reacquisition of the said land required to carry out the development activities to be conducted under the Kandy Teaching Hospital development plan and to construct a housing complex comprising of 66 houses in a separate area within hospital land for the low income earning unauthorized settlers affected by the decision to evict such settlers and allocate houses to them, utilizing the provisions to be allocated to the Ministry for the year 2018, was approved by the Cabinet.