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| Sunday, 8 January 2006 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Speedy
construction of Colombo - Trinco Expressway advocated
by Elmo Leonard The construction of the Colombo Trincomalee Expressway (CTE) is long overdue and should be carried out without delay for the purpose of shifting Colombo centered development into the provinces, as envisaged in the 2006 budget proposals. The CTE was proposed in the early 1970's. The expressway, proposed in the early 1970s should pass through Dambulla, which is the hub of Mahaweli produce trading, Prof Willie Mendis, senior professor of town and country planning of the University of Moratuwa said. Such an expressway would cut down travel time from Colombo to Trincomalee to three hours, enable produce to shift from the Mahaweli areas to the east and west of the country and bring goods into the ports, for export. President Mahinda Rajapakse's request to New Delhi, on his recent visit, to India, to develop Trincomalee as an eastern port city, conforms to his budget proposals to shift development away from the city of Colombo and increase the contribution from the Mahaweli economy to the GDP of the country. From the 1960's the Mahaweli economy was agriculture and hydroelectricity oriented, leaving little room for the second generation of Mahaweli settlers to have opportunity in the progress of the Mahaweli project. The 2006 budget advocates the remodelling of the Mahaweli economy to increase its contribution to the GDP from one to three percent. To achieve this, the budget has proposed an urban development program in the Mahaweli areas. This has already been included in the greater Dambulla Development Plan proposed in the budget, together with the development envisaged in the eastern port city of Trincomalee and its region. With it, the Mahaweli Urban Development Program will be further strengthened. Consequently the Trincomalee Colombo Corridor will be the key to development, away from Colombo and Gampaha. Similarly, the building of the Southern Expressway would link Colombo with the south, heighten southern development and an increase of the south's contribution to the nation's GDP, Prof Mendis said. |
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