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| Sunday, 6 November 2005 |
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Heavy investment needed to achieve economic targets by Elmo Leonard Presidential candidates Mahinda Rajapakse and Ranil Wickremesinghe who advocate eight and ten percent economic growth rates for the nation in their election manifestos, may not be aware of the amount of investment needed in different sectors, to achieve such growth rates, Architect and planner, Surath Wickremasinghe said. He said that the economic boom of post-1977 was achieved with the construction of several mega projects at the same time. These projects included the diversification of the Mahaweli river, airport expansion, construction of the Katunayake free trade zone, Sri Jayawardenapura Parliament complex, Colombo Echelon Square complex, hundred-thousand houses programme, besides. Today, the construction process of the country had slowed down due to the lack of traditional building materials, such as sand, timber and clay. Lack of supply was also pushing prices up, Wickermesinghe said. The Chamber of Construction Industry Sri Lanka (CCISL) had advocated the use of alternatives to river sand; cost-effective alternative roofing materials; low cost construction from alternative building materials; offshore sand, concrete roads among other measures. However, most of the buildings being put up to supplement the 40,000 housing units, schools, hospitals and other buildings damaged by the tsunami of December-last, have been constructed with traditional building materials, impeding progress. Following the tsunami, the proposals to request the donor countries to provide three or four mega factories that could have produced (alternative) building components could have solved part of the problem. Such mega projects, located at strategic places in the north, east, south and west of Sri Lanka could have produced beams, purlins, rafters, reapers, wall and floor panels, roofing materials and even the foundations in large quantities. The donors had responded positively to such proposals, but the non-professional bureaucrats did not consider such recommendations as Wickremesinghe who is CCISL president said. Even now, it was not too late for the government to use high technology mega projects for the production of alternate building materials. This would reduce the cost of, and time for construction, and improve the standard of buildings, Wickremasinghe said. |
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