Minister for Construction and Infrastructure Abdulla Mutalib has said that the Rasmale' land reclamation project has not been stalled.

Addressing a press conference at Seneco Maalam at Voice of Maldives on Monday, Minister Muttalib said that the Rasmale' project was dropped from the state budget when it was approved and the project was being carried out by signing with the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and a contractor.

"At present, the direct land reclamation project is not ongoing. However, it would not be completely correct to say that the project has been stalled at the moment," Minister Muttalib said.

The minister said that the construction of the bund wall was underway as part of the Rasmale land reclamation work, but there were two problems in this regard, one of which was to arrange things with the signed contractor and Boskalis, while at the moment, there was only one dredger being used by the company.

Minister Muttalib added that the company is planning to switch out the dredger after the current reclamation works are complete, and that since this was not a state-funded project, getting a new dredger would cost the state.

"When the project commenced, not enough research was done on the area to dredge sand from. We have now been informed that the area studied for dredging is not enough and the company wants to carry out a wider research campaign with a slight extension. Efforts are being made to resume work soon as possible," the Minister said.

Minister Muttalib further said that in fact, as part of the efforts to start the project as soon as possible at that time, the government had signed the work in such a way that it would start the work and the contractor was considering using its dredger in the Maldives to reduce the contractor costs.

"This has been identified as one of the main reasons why direct sand mining is not taking place at the moment. Since the work is nearing completion, it will not start too late. Then, the land acquisition project in Giravar lake was actually awarded at a very high cost and very high cost," the Minister said.

On December 18 last year, President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu initiated the reclamation of Rasmale' in Fushidhigar lagoon to address the housing shortage faced by the people of the Maldives.

A total of 1,153 hectares of land will be acquired under the Rasmale' reclamation project, which will give 10 hectares of land in Hulhumale' and 60 hectares in Rasmale' on lease for 99 years to the Capital Marine and Civil Construction Company (CMCC), a Sri Lankan company entrusted with the project.

President Dr. Muizzu had earlier stated that 65,000 housing units, including land and flats, would be developed under the Rasmale' development project.