27th May, Chennai— A model village built in Mannar, Sri Lanka with India’s assistance was inaugurated on Monday. The Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Santosh Jha, inaugurated the model village, following which 24 needy families received homes of their dreams. The Indian High Commission in Colombo shared photos of the inauguration ceremony on social media platform ‘X’, stating, “High Commissioner Santosh Jha and the Hon. T.B. Sarath, Deputy Minister of Urban Development, Construction, and Housing, jointly inaugurated the Jim Brown Model Village in Mannar and handed it over to the beneficiary families. Hon. MP Jagathgishwaran also participated in the event.” In another post, the High Commission wrote, “Under the Model Village Housing Project, implemented with grant assistance from the Government of India, model villages of 24 houses each are being constructed for low-income families in each of the 25 districts of Sri Lanka.”The High Commission further informed that apart from the inauguration ceremony, the Indian High Commissioner also met Bishop Gnanapragasam Anthonypillai of Mannar. During the meeting, they discussed India’s development assistance projects as well as various proposed and ongoing India–Sri Lanka initiatives that will provide significant benefits to the people of the region. It is worth noting that India and Sri Lanka signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in October 2018 for better housing for the needy. Under the housing program for model villages, India is supporting the construction of 2,400 houses across 100 model villages in partnership with Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Housing & Construction and Culture. India has provided a grant of ₹120 crore for this initiative. The first model village built with India’s support was inaugurated in Gampaha, Sri Lanka in July 2019.