All issues related to the consulate have been finalised, the sources said. Colombo has cleared the Indian proposal. The request to open the consulate was made soon after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was militarily defeated and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran killed in May last year.
The consulate in Jaffna, India hopes, will promote greater people-to-people contact between India and the Tamil population. Jaffna, in the very northern tip of Sri Lanka, is wholly Tamil. India also hopes that the move will increase economic activities in a region that was once known as the breadbasket of Sri Lanka.
India has announced Rs.500 crore (around $100 million) for construction works and rehabilitation of about 300,000 Tamils displaced by the fighting last year between LTTE and government forces. India has a high commission in Colombo and a consulate at Kandy.
Published 29 January 2010, 15:19 IST