Planned investment amounting to Rs2b: Four major megapolis projects approved

Planned investment amounting to Rs2b:

Four major megapolis projects approved

By Chandani Jayatilaka

Western Region Megapolis Planning Project Chairman, Ajita de Costa

Four major development projects with planned investments of at least Rs 2 billion have been approved by the Megapolis project team for implementation, Chairman, Western Region Megapolis Planning Project, Ajita de Costa told the Sunday Observer.
The four projects identified by the team are: an elevated road system into metropolitan Colombo, a multi-modal commercial hub in Pettah, Colombo, an industrial zone in Mirigama and a comprehensive flood retention control system for the Kelani River.
“The four projects are ready for implementation and the next step would be to advertise the projects for investments,” de Costa said. The Cabinet appointed procurement committees will fast-track the investment process. The overall project costs are likely to be met with a mix of private and public investment.
Under the Megapolis master plan, Mirigama and Horana were proposed to be developed as industrial cities, as part of the overall drive to enhance the manufacturing component of the national economy, while generating direct and indirect employment opportunities. This will also lead to relocation of some of the existing industries.
The industrial zone at Mirigama is expected to be developed as a specialized zone for food processing, largely export-oriented, and based on the diverse variety of Sri Lankan and regional foods, thereby emerging as an important centre on the Asian culinary map.
The new industrial area will cover several small towns and villages in the Mirigama area and is expected to generate 35,000 new employment opportunities.
The ‘multi modal hub’ in Pettah envisages the development of a modern transport hub in Pettah, development of a unique shopping district along the Beira Lake utilizing the adjacent Sri Lanka Railways land, as a major landmark in downtown Colombo. Other components of the Pettah hub will be an entertainment district on the other side of the Beira Lake as another destination in downtown Colombo, a cruise centre at the old Colombo port area linking the new shopping district, the Fort heritage district and the Pettah bazaar district and, development of a commercial centre for all forms of Innovations with commercialization potential.
The Megapolis master plan also highlights the need for preserving natural flood retention areas within the planned sectors during the implementation of the master plan. This is to prevent encroachment of future real estate developments into these areas.

Gainer wrote:Planned investment amounting to Rs2b:

Four major megapolis projects approved

By Chandani Jayatilaka

Western Region Megapolis Planning Project Chairman, Ajita de Costa

Four major development projects with planned investments of at least Rs 2 billion have been approved by the Megapolis project team for implementation, Chairman, Western Region Megapolis Planning Project, Ajita de Costa told the Sunday Observer.
The four projects identified by the team are: an elevated road system into metropolitan Colombo, a multi-modal commercial hub in Pettah, Colombo, an industrial zone in Mirigama and a comprehensive flood retention control system for the Kelani River.
“The four projects are ready for implementation and the next step would be to advertise the projects for investments,” de Costa said. The Cabinet appointed procurement committees will fast-track the investment process. The overall project costs are likely to be met with a mix of private and public investment.
Under the Megapolis master plan, Mirigama and Horana were proposed to be developed as industrial cities, as part of the overall drive to enhance the manufacturing component of the national economy, while generating direct and indirect employment opportunities. This will also lead to relocation of some of the existing industries.
The industrial zone at Mirigama is expected to be developed as a specialized zone for food processing, largely export-oriented, and based on the diverse variety of Sri Lankan and regional foods, thereby emerging as an important centre on the Asian culinary map.
The new industrial area will cover several small towns and villages in the Mirigama area and is expected to generate 35,000 new employment opportunities.
The ‘multi modal hub’ in Pettah envisages the development of a modern transport hub in Pettah, development of a unique shopping district along the Beira Lake utilizing the adjacent Sri Lanka Railways land, as a major landmark in downtown Colombo. Other components of the Pettah hub will be an entertainment district on the other side of the Beira Lake as another destination in downtown Colombo, a cruise centre at the old Colombo port area linking the new shopping district, the Fort heritage district and the Pettah bazaar district and, development of a commercial centre for all forms of Innovations with commercialization potential.
The Megapolis master plan also highlights the need for preserving natural flood retention areas within the planned sectors during the implementation of the master plan. This is to prevent encroachment of future real estate developments into these areas.

Good NEWS

Chinwi wrote:Planned investment amounting to Rs2b !

Rs 2 billion have been approved by the Megapolis project team for implementation  ?

රුපියල්බිලියන් 2 න් කරයි ඉටි ගෙඩිය​.

බිලියන් 2 න් ෆීසිබිලිටි ස්ටඩි කරල මිනුම් කරල ඉතුරු වෙන සල්ලිවලින්   ප්‍රොජෙක්ට් එකට යට වෙන ඉඩම් වලින් 5% කට වන්දි දෙන්න වත් බෑ.


තියෙන සල්ලි ටිකත්බොරු ප්ලෑන් ගහන්න  විනාස කරන්නෙ නැතුව  ඔය හීන සැබැකරන්න අවශ්‍ය  සල්ලි හොයන්නෙ කොහොමද කියල ගනන් හදල  බලල ඇත්ත තේරුම් ගන්නගන්නව නම් දැනට​ පාරක තාර ටිකක් වත් දායි.  

Mahaweli project eka aurudu 30 kata plan karala pahen karanna yaddith samahara kakulen adina porawal ohoma katha kiwwa. NAamuth wade una. 

Wade hondaI nam karanna apahasu kamak penunath wachanayen hari support ekak dena eka neda honda.? Mokada mewa karanne ratatama.

ranferdi wrote:

Chinwi wrote:Planned investment amounting to Rs2b !

Rs 2 billion have been approved by the Megapolis project team for implementation  ?

රුපියල්බිලියන් 2 න් කරයි ඉටි ගෙඩිය​.

බිලියන් 2 න් ෆීසිබිලිටි ස්ටඩි කරල මිනුම් කරල ඉතුරු වෙන සල්ලිවලින්   ප්‍රොජෙක්ට් එකට යට වෙන ඉඩම් වලින් 5% කට වන්දි දෙන්න වත් බෑ.


තියෙන සල්ලි ටිකත්බොරු ප්ලෑන් ගහන්න  විනාස කරන්නෙ නැතුව  ඔය හීන සැබැකරන්න අවශ්‍ය  සල්ලි හොයන්නෙ කොහොමද කියල ගනන් හදල  බලල ඇත්ත තේරුම් ගන්නගන්නව නම් දැනට​ පාරක තාර ටිකක් වත් දායි.  

Mahaweli project eka aurudu 30 kata plan karala pahen karanna yaddith samahara kakulen adina porawal ohoma katha kiwwa. NAamuth wade una. 

Wade hondaI nam karanna apahasu kamak penunath wachanayen hari support ekak dena eka neda honda.? Mokada mewa karanne ratatama.

Correct.  You are telling the same thing mate. I am happy  to  read your words.  
I wrote above because  by looking at a project summary I can see a larger picture and its worthiness.  

As you have mentioned about Mahaveli I like to write few line for the readers:

SLFP was in power and they were following the 30 year plan of Mahaveli .  Studies were carried out during 1960 s and 70 for that vast project . Even 5  % of money was not available in Sri Lanka to do it in 6 years. Somehow they started and Completed Polgolla dam  to divert water to NCP in 1976 .
People were frustrated with no cloths, less food ,' haal polu' , 'miris polu' in closed economy.  To buy a loaf of bread you have to kill time in queues in early morning and evening. Maximum allowed was 2 for a family. We had to go for bread because rice was at scarcity. For those who wanted get married, before other things, the bridegroom had to go to Gramasewaka and AGA's office to get approval to obtain 2 1/2 yards of clothing material needed for the wedding suit.


With lot of hopes people voted for a UNP government  and Hon. J.R Jayewardena became the PM and then the President. Hon. Gamini L. Dissanayake was appointed as the Minister of Mahaveli to do the task , do it in 6 years and he , with the support of the entire team  did a marvelous, never seen  job during that time.

Hon. Gamini Dissanayake had the knowledge and courage to take the responsibility of everything and the determination to achieve the  the  impossible looking  task.

They calculated the cash needed for the entire project , which comprised many reservoirs,  power houses and 100 s of miles of canals. Withing few months they were able to arrange the huge amounts of funding   needed for the project by talking to Canada, UK, Germany  and other UNP friendly countries.

I was fortunate to follow these projects , learn the  leadership qualities of Gamini and was there even on the opening day of Randenigala Reservoir and visited many of those projects during the construction.  
(recently some people blamed me for going to Mattala to see it , branding me as MARA's man )

I can write pages about the patriot UNP leader like Hon. Gamini Dissanayake and how he guided the entire workforce to complete the gigantic project, Kothmale, Vicoria , Randenigala, inter basin reservoirs , channels , powerhouses etc.

During that time they had top caliber managers in Mahaveli Ministry and in the other ministries like Finance.

At the beginning I said "With lot of hopes people voted for a UNP government ".
I can say    they did take  considerable genuine efforts during first few years to fulfill the hopes of the people who voted them.
(At the same time got black marks by going over the limits to punish opponents .  They mercilessly chased away over 1 lak of people from their jobs during 1980 general strike and many families were devastated due to that horrific action of the UNP government.)

Unfortunately now we cannot find a single person of the caliber of JR, Gamini, Lalith , Ranjan or Premadasa in this mentally retarded government, a politician or any official.

They cannot get at least 2 % of the assistant and economic support  JRJ got from the world  during his tenure .  They have no capacity to see what and how they should do to start a boom.  

Current UNP inclined people may hate me. But as a man who was with real top quality people I cannot stay or keep hopes with useless unpatriotic puppets.

Chinwi, agree with you.

Since 94, the country under Chandrika and later MR, politicians have effectively cannibalised the country. And now only produce cannibals to go to parliament.

Last year January this country made a bold attempt to stop these blood suckers from draining this country any further.

The UNP voters did vote in some quality people but due to lack of numbers Ranil still have to accommodate cannibals in the cabinet to run the country. It will take some time to reverse the calibre of politicians, be patient.

On the other hand majority of the opposition still voted for these animals and are now trying to stall the progress the people started to make them extinct.

Hopefully the real quality will come to the top and achievements such as Mahveli will be a reality.

I think cannibalization start in 1977

Chadrika did not take any action against the culprits

MR aggravated the situation by giving preference to get advice of Basil

Who trained under Gemini to make money from development project

Being an educated and intelligent person Gamini D had done it in systematic way he was a cooperatively good leader.

Uneducated
greedy ........ tried to make money by using both hands.That was the main problem under MR Govt

If this govt act like Chndrika in 1994 with taking actin against corrupt people same process will continue further.

That is why people ask to take effective action against corrupt politicians under MS RANIL Govt

I do not mind any body get commission or cut from any work.

WHY ?


I am taking the time factor here.

Ok let them 10% or even 20% taken away as long as they do some genuine long lasting work.

It is better than no work and wasting a life time of a generation.

What happened during Chandrika time ? Just sold and robbed while sending small people to jail , no work to the country. Life time is lost during that foolish era. 11 years of our lifetime was destroyed by a useless woman.

People were shouting about Gamini buying 'Apple wathu' in Australia and declared he did development work to increase his wealth in abroad by taking commission.

Bought lands or not, the work done during that time is giving really wealth to the country for decades. Even he siphoned some percentage, it becomes negligible if you consider the value of electricity generated since then .(forget about the rice harvest)

Same for any other construction.

People who do not understand the way the world run are trying to make a big ha-ho about corruption and ultimately they stop everything. Mr RW who has no knowledge or experience about any fruitful work is similar to Chandrika.

What is happening now ?
Entire country is put to find and punish corruption. Govt servants do not take any risk in doing work due to fear of unwanted troubles by FCID.
In out setup, we cannot do any work in time without violating some old aged rules.
Out financial ends is December. October - December is raining. If we sent all the allocated money back in December no work can be done during dry Feb March. Hence normal practice was to do some 'samyak prayoga' and get the work done in dry seasons while cash retained at offices in Dec. - Jan.
Now no one will take unwanted risks to get the work progress because FCID can send people jail charging for looting of public money.
No work no trouble.

The people will realize the outcome of the current lethargic non practical thinking after 4-5 years time.

Chinwi wrote:

ranferdi wrote:

Chinwi wrote:Planned investment amounting to Rs2b !

Rs 2 billion have been approved by the Megapolis project team for implementation  ?

රුපියල්බිලියන් 2 න් කරයි ඉටි ගෙඩිය​.

බිලියන් 2 න් ෆීසිබිලිටි ස්ටඩි කරල මිනුම් කරල ඉතුරු වෙන සල්ලිවලින්   ප්‍රොජෙක්ට් එකට යට වෙන ඉඩම් වලින් 5% කට වන්දි දෙන්න වත් බෑ.


තියෙන සල්ලි ටිකත්බොරු ප්ලෑන් ගහන්න  විනාස කරන්නෙ නැතුව  ඔය හීන සැබැකරන්න අවශ්‍ය  සල්ලි හොයන්නෙ කොහොමද කියල ගනන් හදල  බලල ඇත්ත තේරුම් ගන්නගන්නව නම් දැනට​ පාරක තාර ටිකක් වත් දායි.  

Mahaweli project eka aurudu 30 kata plan karala pahen karanna yaddith samahara kakulen adina porawal ohoma katha kiwwa. NAamuth wade una. 

Wade hondaI nam karanna apahasu kamak penunath wachanayen hari support ekak dena eka neda honda.? Mokada mewa karanne ratatama.

Correct.  You are telling the same thing mate. I am happy  to  read your words.  
I wrote above because  by looking at a project summary I can see a larger picture and its worthiness.  

As you have mentioned about Mahaveli I like to write few line for the readers:

SLFP was in power and they were following the 30 year plan of Mahaveli .  Studies were carried out during 1960 s and 70 for that vast project . Even 5  % of money was not available in Sri Lanka to do it in 6 years. Somehow they started and Completed Polgolla dam  to divert water to NCP in 1976 .
People were frustrated with no cloths, less food ,' haal polu' , 'miris polu' in closed economy.  To buy a loaf of bread you have to kill time in queues in early morning and evening. Maximum allowed was 2 for a family. We had to go for bread because rice was at scarcity. For those who wanted get married, before other things, the bridegroom had to go to Gramasewaka and AGA's office to get approval to obtain 2 1/2 yards of clothing material needed for the wedding suit.


With lot of hopes people voted for a UNP government  and Hon. J.R Jayewardena became the PM and then the President. Hon. Gamini L. Dissanayake was appointed as the Minister of Mahaveli to do the task , do it in 6 years and he , with the support of the entire team  did a marvelous, never seen  job during that time.

Hon. Gamini Dissanayake had the knowledge and courage to take the responsibility of everything and the determination to achieve the  the  impossible looking  task.

They calculated the cash needed for the entire project , which comprised many reservoirs,  power houses and 100 s of miles of canals. Withing few months they were able to arrange the huge amounts of funding   needed for the project by talking to Canada, UK, Germany  and other UNP friendly countries.

I was fortunate to follow these projects , learn the  leadership qualities of Gamini and was there even on the opening day of Randenigala Reservoir and visited many of those projects during the construction.  
(recently some people blamed me for going to Mattala to see it , branding me as MARA's man )

I can write pages about the patriot UNP leader like Hon. Gamini Dissanayake and how he guided the entire workforce to complete the gigantic project, Kothmale, Vicoria , Randenigala, inter basin reservoirs , channels , powerhouses etc.

During that time they had top caliber managers in Mahaveli Ministry and in the other ministries like Finance.

At the beginning I said "With lot of hopes people voted for a UNP government ".
I can say    they did take  considerable genuine efforts during first few years to fulfill the hopes of the people who voted them.
(At the same time got black marks by going over the limits to punish opponents .  They mercilessly chased away over 1 lak of people from their jobs during 1980 general strike and many families were devastated due to that horrific action of the UNP government.)

Unfortunately now we cannot find a single person of the caliber of JR, Gamini, Lalith , Ranjan or Premadasa in this mentally retarded government, a politician or any official.

They cannot get at least 2 % of the assistant and economic support  JRJ got from the world  during his tenure .  They have no capacity to see what and how they should do to start a boom.  

Current UNP inclined people may hate me. But as a man who was with real top quality people I cannot stay or keep hopes with useless unpatriotic puppets.

I respect you for your vast knowledge of these projects but Doubt the very reason that you dont believe current UNP government. Is that because you support MR??

We do not want corrupt politicos first, The reason UNP is facing difficulties is because traditional supporting countries are faced with economic troubles. UNP now is approaching some other countries including China and I am sure they will succeed.

Lets hope the current set of UNP leaders have the ability to do so meantime we need to support the change give it due time before trying to change the change.

anferdi wrote: respect you for your vast knowledge of these projects but Doubt the very reason that you dont believe current UNP government. Is that because you support MR??

I support MR because he performed than any other leader. Most of allegations against him about robbing by highways were fake. Now everybody understood it after this govt. signed higher priced  agreements for   highways. So it was not fair for him.

I predicted this outcome of the new team not because I supported Mahinda.
  I knew them very well and their capabilities. Hence I knew they cannot manage this as expected.   I have not talked to any member of Rajapaksa family todate .  I do not think even he can change the current turmoil.

The answer to your question is: I cannot see any intelligent or practical person in current UNP.

Mr Gamini Jayawickrama Perera was a capable man but now he is too old. All other leading characters are too old and newcomers are useless babies and talking nonsense every time. Actually they are jokers sitting under UNP banner.
Hon. R. Premadasa was a very capable man but next generation is no way closer. Same for Gamini Dissanayake's .

Although nobody highlight due to obvious reasons, even RW is too old now  for the game. That is why he cannot deliver the expected wisdom.

In 1977 govt.,  Gamini was in his late 30 s and all the other top leaders were in their 30 s 40 s. 71 year old JRJ was the manager with experience  and he put youth to work.

RW is 67 and cannot take energetic actions and unable to do any innovative thinking. In addition, he has no team like his maama got.

Although I referred age, I know some people's brain works well even  in late 80s while others start troubles in 60s.   JRJ @ 71 was much energetic and smarter and a huge character.  

I write not from newspaper info. but mostly with my own observations.   JR's grandson Amrit , my classmate 40-45 years ago. I have met his grandfather.

With respect to you Chinwi,

Chandrika ruined this country and quite a lot of young professionals left the country because of her.

Also agree that Ranil is no JR.

MR finished the war, great but next five years started to damage the country beyond the war. His work on roads were pretty much over due and looked awesome simply compared to Chandrikas time. MR put the next generation in severe debt for which we have started paying without any use from the expenditure. Harbour, airport, cricket stadium, conventional centre, Sri Lankan airlines, Mihin air and simply the exorbitant spending cultur of the ministers and senior government servants are a few examples. This has to be brought back to reality but crooks are still plentiful in the government simply because Ranil don't have numbers.

I also agree that Chandrika should have done the cleanup in 94, and if so we would not be faced with this kind of cannibalistic politicians or seniors civil servants.
We must put this right, even though it will hold the progress of the country temporarily. This culture, which MR cultivated is worse than the war economically.

Also agree that I cannot see Gaminis or Laliths on face but think there are potential capable people in the UNP but with no powers yet. Remember JR did give Gamini enough power to do what he did.

Till we get this politicians bread by MR and Chandrika out, no light at the end of the tunnel I am afraid.

It is a fact that all development projects were brought to a grinding halt under the present Govt. The attitude towards China at the outset was highly deplorable. Inconsistent policies that lacked clarity created confusion and chaos among the business community which is still continuing.