Consultative meeting on ‘Virusara Varaprasada’ project for 2017 held at Defence Ministry

In a bid to streamline future programmes of the welfare of war heroes, a meeting was held under the patronage of State Defence Minister Ruwan Wijayawardena at Defence Ministry auditorium on January 18^th 2017.

The State Minister elaborated    that over 25,000 war heroes were awarded with Wirusara Privilege card in the previous year and all possible steps would be taken to strengthen the war heroes’ welfare programme within this year 2017 too. The Minister further explained in order to uplift the welfare of war heroes a housing project called ‘Wirusumithuru’ will also be launched within this year to construct houses for war heroes.

The discussions at the meeting were mainly focused on reviewing the progress of how ‘Virusara Privilege card’ project was implemented during the previous year (2016) and how it should be implemented within this year (2017) and what measures required to be taken to popularize the project among public.

During the meeting, the way how war heroes would get benefits through this project was also lengthily discussed. It was revealed that the war heroes confront a huge issue and they get embarrassed when attempting to receive benefits from outstation branch offices was identified and it was found those incidents were reported mainly due to lack of awareness of the project by the public.

The Minister firmly stated that the war heroes should never be embarrassed  at any cost and urgent sufficient propaganda campaigns need to be implemented though social media and mobile programme to publicize the project. Accordingly, the Minister directed officials to implement the first mobile propaganda campaign at Maligapitiya public grounds in February 2017 to aware the public over the project.

Defence Ministry Secretary Eng Karunasena Hettiarachchi, State Defence Ministry Secretary A.G.P. Kithsiri, Chairperson of the Ranaviru Seva Authority (RSA) Mrs. Anoma Fonseka, Senior Ministry officials, representatives of Tri forces and police were present at the meeting.