Many projects in the offing:

Highways to the future

by Ananda KANNANGARA

Highways Minister T.B. Ekanayake pointed out that the Government's next aim is to expedite the ongoing construction work of the highway network in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

Highways Minister T.B. Ekanayake

In an interview with the Sunday Observer he said the Government has allocated a huge sum of US $ 3,000 million to fulfil this task.

"In addition to byroads and other small roads, there are three types of roads in the country and they belong to A and B Grades. The main roads belong to the third category," he said.

Minister Ekanayake said four highways are being constructed and they belong to the Super Grade category.

He said the Government has allocated Rs. 295 million for the current year to construct A and B Grade roads and a record sum of Rs. 80,000 million to construct all other main roads such as those from Colombo to Horana, Ratnapura, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Anuradhapura and Kataragama.

He said the Highways Ministry is aware that many of the main roads in the country are not motorable and that some of them are in a dilapidated condition.

"We have planned to repair these main roads within the next six months and the repairing of some roads such as the Colombo-Horana road have already commenced," he said.

On the proposed highways in the country, the Minister said out of four highways in the pipeline, the construction work of three highways, those from Colombo to Matara via Dodangoda (Dhakshina Adivegi) which is 74 kilometres in length, Colombo to Katunayaka (26.6 kilometres) and Kottawa to Kerawalapitiya via Kaduwela (28 kilometres) have already commenced.

The A- 9 road will be widened

The overhead bridge in Kelaniya

Road construction work under way

He said 70 per cent of the construction work of the Colombo-Matara highway has been completed.

The Minister further said the acquisition of land to construct the country's main highway between Colombo to Kandy (98 kilometres) is now in progress.

Overhead bridges

Asked about complaints made by residents in several areas about overhead bridges that have not been constructed according to the correct standards, the Minister said only one such incident was reported, regarding an overhead bridge and steps were taken to make a full inquiry on that.

"Other than that, we have not yet heard of any incidents with regard to low quality overhead bridges," he said.

The Minister also assured that if complaints are made in regard to poor quality road construction work in any part of the country in the future, strict measures will be taken against the contractors.

However, the Minister was very confident that all other overhead bridges have been constructed according to proper standards.

Minister Ekanayake also focused attention on the poor condition of many roads which have been constructed under the supervision of Provincial Councils and said that since the ownership of many village roads have been entrusted to Provincial Councils, it is their duty to carry out maintenance work as well.

However, he said, if the ownership of all these A and B Grade village roads are given over to the Road Development Authority (RDA), we could provide a better service. He said although Provincial Councils spend a large amount of money to concrete village roads than they spend on tarred roads, the maintenance of concrete roads is actually much easier than tarred roads.

"Even a villager could repair the pot holes on concrete roads at any moment without calling RDA officials," he said.

The Minister said under such conditions, steps will be taken to concrete all village roads during this year.

Minister Ekanayake said like in several foreign countries, his Ministry has plans to hand over the maintenance work of village roads to the officers of village committees and the members of village development societies.

"Then they have to not only carry out the road repair work, but also to conduct road clearing and remove garbage lying on either side of the roads".

On action taken by the RDA to stop water accumulating on the sides of roads during rainy days, the Minister said that since many residents have constructed unauthorised parapet walls around their gardens , the removal of water cannot be carried out easily.

Widening the A-9

On the ongoing road construction work in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, especially after the war, the Minister said the A-9 road used by people to travel between Colombo and Jaffna will be widened.

The Southern highway

He said 60 percent of the construction work of the A- 32 road which runs between Vavuniya and Pooneryn has been already completed and over 75 percent of the construction work of the Silawatura-Murungan Road (about 60 km) and the road between Puttalam and Thalaimannar via Mannar has also started.

The Minister also mentioned the completion of the Trincomalee-Batticaloa, Habarana-Trincomalee, Habarana-Kantale and Siyambalanduwa-Akkaraipattu Roads.

Minister Ekanayake mentioned that the construction work of the proposed bridge between India and Sri Lanka has come to a standstill on the grounds that such a road could be used by unwanted elements to engage in illegal activities.

The Minister also focused special attention on the construction of rail gates at unprotected railway crossings and said that fixing rail gates is a responsibility of the Railways Department and not the Highways Ministry.

"But, I will deal with the relevant officials in this regard and take suitable steps to fix rail gates at all unprotected rail crossings for the sake of pedestrians and motorists", the Minister said.