Expanding school bus service

Students waiting for school buses.

The school bus service, Sisu Saviya is to be expanded throughout the island by the Transport Ministry in collaboration with private bus operators.

Covering 55 per cent of the island through the school bus service by December 2008 is the main aim of the National Transport Commission (NTC). Funds to implement the project e.g. to purchase buses, would be released by the Treasury.

It order to provide an efficient and safe transport service to schoolchildren, the Cabinet had approved the purchase of 300 buses for this school bus service.

The NTC expects to use about 1,000 private and SLTB buses for the Sisu Saviya by next January. Private bus operators who register with the NTC for this programme would get a subsidy from the Commission to cover their losses as they can charge only 10 per cent of the normal bus fare on these buses.

Private school buses will be painted in a different colour for easy identification.

Such colouring material would be provided by the Commission free of charge.

Programme to conserve rain forests

Kanneliya forest reserve

A programme to conserve low country rain forests is to be implemented by the Forest Conservation Department shortly. As part of this programme, a survey of the Kanneliya forest reserve in the Galle district has already begun.

This forest, which is 5,309 hectares in extent, is next to the Dediyagala and Nakiyadeniya forests. According to the Forest Conservation Department, this rain forest contains over 234 rare species of flora.

Electrified fence to keep away wild elephants

Elephants at Minneriya

An electrified fence between the Minneriya National Park and its neighbouring villages is to be erected by the Wildlife Conservation Department.

This nine-kilometre electrified fence to come up between the park and the villages Moragasveva, Udaakala Gama and Threesinhagama, will keep away wild elephants. The Department has earmarked Rs. 4.8 million for this project which is being implemented by a local community organisation called the Vana Sarana Prajaamuula Sanvidhaanaya of Moragasveva. Funds worth Rs. 303,360 have already gone towards the project.

Cultural Centre at Nawimana

Last week, we told you about the cultural centre which is proposed to be set up in Veyangoda. The Ministry of Cultural Affairs has more plans to boost the cultural sector of Sri Lanka. It has also made arrangements to establish another Cultural Centre at Nawimana, Matara.

It is expected to cost around Rs. 400 million. Funds worth Rs. 100 million has already been allocated for the preliminary work with regard to the new cultural centre. This centre is expected to co-ordinate the activities of all the regional cultural centres in the Southern Province.

Indian berries fight dengue mosquitoes

Berries of a common weed found in India may be effective in fighting mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, a study has found.

Synthetic insecticides are increasingly useless in fighting disease-spreading mosquitoes, such as the Stegomyia aegypti that can spread dengue and yellow fever viruses.

In the online open-access journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, scientists in India described how they used juice and extracts from the Solanum villosum weed and found it was particularly effective in eliminating S. aegyptil arvae.

Solanum villosum

“The extract from the plant could be used in stagnant water bodies which are known to be the breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” Nandita Chowdhury, Anupam Ghosh and Goutam Chandra from Burdwan University in India’s West Bengal wrote.

They went on to discover the juices contained certain chemical compounds.

“These act as a repellent which protects against the lethal effects of the larval mosquitoes,” they added. From Africa to Asia to Latin America, around 2.5 billion people live in areas where they are at risk of dengue fever.

There is no vaccine or drug to treat the illness, which killed an estimated 22,000 people last year, most of them children.

Due to international travel and climate change, the aegypti mosquito’s habitat is spreading.

In January, health officials warned that the disease was poised to move across the United States.

It has been spreading aggressively in Latin America and the Caribbean, reaching epidemic levels last year.

Of the 50 million people who contract the disease every year, about one per cent get potentially deadly severe dengue haemorrhagic fever, which requires hospitalisation.

Reuters