Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Jaffna powerless due to road reconstruction

By Franklin R. Satyapalan

The government has been forced to switch off power in the Jaffna District for eight hours daily to reconstruct a proper two-lane carpeted road network in the whole District. The Asian Development Bank is funding the project which is expected to cost USD $ 103 million, RDA General Manager, Chief Engineer, W. A. S. Weerasinghe said yesterday.

At the same time, the government had obtained Rs 18,000 million from China to carpet and improve the A-9 Kandy highway from Galkulama to the Jaffna Peninsula by December 2013, RDA’s Director of Road Network Improvement, Project Engineer R. M. Gamini said yesterday

The widening of the Kankesanthurai, Point Pedro, Palaly roads the Kaithady to Manipay road and the Atchuvely to Araly Point roads are expected to be completed by August 2013, said Director of Northern Road Connectivity Project, Engineer S. Chandrapalan.

Chief Electrical Engineer S. Gnanaganeshan, based in Chunnakam, said that they had to enforce the power cuts from 8.30 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. daily to allow the RDA to carry out the development of the road network. "We are quite aware that the productivity of the businessmen, small industrialists and even farmers have been affected as a result of the power cuts, though certain newspapers are functioning with the aid of generators.

He said that as the roads leading from the A-9 Highway were narrow every month several power transmission lines were found to have been toppled and damaged by speeding motorists.

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=48992

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