Feb 02, Colombo: Less than three years after the war Sri Lanka has resettled 98 percent of the nearly 300,000 war-displaced people in the North, a government minister said.

At a press briefing held in his Ministry, Sri Lanka's Minister of Resettlement Gunaratne Weerakoon told media that the resettlement process had made a commendable progress since the war ended in May 2009 and this is the first time in the world history such a large amount of IDPs resettled in a conflict-affected area.

According to the Minister 724,135 people or 216,412 families have been resettled in their original abodes in the cleared areas of the Northern Province.

Only 6,556 people of 1,965 families still remain in two IDP camps either due to the delay in demining their home areas or they have no other place to go.

The remaining IDPs were originally from the Puthukudiyiruppu area in Mullativu district where more intense battles between the government security forces and the Tamil Tiger rebels took place. The area is heavily mined, the government says.

The Sri Lankan government plans to allocate over Rs. 1.3 billion to complete the resettlement of families remaining in the welfare centers in their native villages.