The 2027 Budget allocates Rs 26,820 million for housing projects serving urban low-income earners, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament on Thursday.
The government has identified a need for 50,000 homes for urban low-income households, Hiru News reported. Against that target:
- More than 16,000 homes have been fully completed
- A further 5,000 are partially built
That leaves roughly 29,000 of the identified 50,000 neither complete nor under construction — a gap the filing does not address.
What finishes in 2027
The partially completed projects due to be finished next year are at:
Torrington · Kolombage Mawatha · Kolonnawa · Peliyagoda · Moratuwa · Maharagama · Dematagoda
New housing complexes are also proposed to begin at Meethotamulla and at Wilgoda, Kurunegala.
Context
Urban low-income housing in Colombo has been dominated for a decade by relocation programmes moving families from informal settlements into apartment blocks, a process that has drawn consistent criticism over unit sizes, service charges and distance from residents’ work. Meethotamulla, named here as a site for a new complex, is the location of the 2017 garbage dump collapse that killed more than 30 people and displaced hundreds of families.
The Rs 26,820 million is among the larger single allocations announced on budget day — more than three times the Rs 8.6 billion of 2027 tranches going to the six named drinking water construction projects.
Sourcing note
Hiru News was the only verified newsroom to have filed on the housing allocation at the time of writing, and this report carries a single verified source. The Daily Mirror and EconomyNext breaking rails, checked after the announcement, carried no filing on it. The figures are as Hiru News recorded them from the speech, translated from Sinhala.
Not reported
The filing does not say how many units the Rs 26,820 million is expected to deliver, give a cost per unit, or state whether the 16,000 completed homes have been handed over and occupied. It does not say when the remaining 29,000 of the identified 50,000 would be built, who qualifies for a unit, or what residents pay. Nor does it say how many families the Meethotamulla and Wilgoda complexes will house.