Facelift for N-E roads
by Ananda KANNANGARA
The Highways Ministry yesterday said that a massive highway
construction project in the Northern Province will be commenced shortly,
referring the arrival of over 200,000 visitors to the Jaffna peninsula
from other parts of the country during the past two months.
Highways Minister T.B. Ekanayake told the Sunday Observer that an
allocation of US dollar 3,000 million has already been granted to
construct the entire highway network in the North and East.
He said at a time when a peaceful atmosphere prevails in the entire
Northern and Eastern districts and people in their thousands from the
South have begun to travel to the North it is the duty of his Ministry
to expedite the road construction work in the two districts.
He said in addition to main roads which lead to major towns, such as
Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, Ampara, Kalmunai and Killinochchi
in the North and East, all by-roads and other small roads will also be
constructed under this project.
The Minister said his Ministry will plan to construct
highways and super grade roads in these two districts in future with
the objective of improving fish, dry fish, vegetable and fruit business
industries.
He said the widening of the A-9 Road between Colombo and Jaffna will
also commenced.
He said 75 per cent of the construction work of the A- 32 road which
runs between Vavuniya and Pooneryn has already completed and over 75 per
cent construction work of the Silawatura-Murungan Road which has about
60 km and the road between Outtalam and Thalaimannarama Via Mannar has
also started.
The Minister said steps have already been taken to construct the main
roads from Colombo to Horana, Ratnapura, Galle, Matara, Hambantota,
Anuradhapura and Colombo to Kataragama.
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