Sri Lanka President Stresses Importance of Road Building

On January 6, Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse chaired an ad hoc meeting of the Ministry of Highways of Sri Lanka. At the meeting, President Rajapakse stressed a well-planned highway network was vitally important to the future development of Sri Lanka. The Ministry of Highways should work out the highway development planning and keep improving highway facilities to satisfy the expectation and wish of the public, he noted. Maintaining a sound highway facility system is very important to effectively implement the development planning and thus benefit the public with the development fruits, President Rajapakse stressed. The meeting reviewed the work done by the Ministry of Highways in the past six years, and discussed its future working plan. The government has appropriated LKR102 billion to the ministry in the past. The only purpose of such a large fiscal appropriation is to provide the people with an efficient and systematic highway network and accordingly improve the community life. Officials present at the meeting said that the highway development program planned to complete 720km, but they had exceeded the preset objective, and already completed 855km. The principal work of the southern highway has been completed, and the entire highway is scheduled to open to traffic this June.
The airport highway (CKE) project undertaken by MCC Group, the most representative highway in Sri Lanka, has completed nearly 30%. All the employees of the MCC CKE project department have made the concerted efforts in the past year. The result: Efficient design and management, steady enhancement of technical quality, timeliness and adequacy of material supply, obvious effect of cost reduction and benefit enhancement, regularity of operation and management, and efficiency and soundness of fund management All these showcase the spirit and strength of a central enterprise. At the ad hoc meeting, President Rajapakse expected the entire CKE project to complete at the end of 2012.