Tyre factory crashes

By Sujeewa Edirisinghe

The bicycle tyre manufacturing unit at Mawanella belonging to the Sri Lanka Rubber Manufacturing and Export Corporation has ceased production and remains closed.

It was set up in 1974 under a UNDP programme. The unit is sited in a 12 acre block of land. Though the cost of setting up the unit had cost Rs. 1,400 million, workers there said the machines used to manufacture the tyres were sub-standard resulting in poor sales in the market. Today the machines are inactive and in a state of ruin. Among them is an expensive boiler.

The buildings are dilapidated and the whole place is overgrown with weeds. Giving his opinion on the sad state of affairs here, a factory spokesman said the Cabinet sub committee studying projects which were not viable, hopes to reactivate the unit with the co-operation of a private company.

Meanwhile, a private businessman who has bought a land adjacent to the premises, has attempted to cut an access road through the land, so that the land he owns could be sold at an auction. The businessman’s land is located in close proximity to the main Colombo-Kandy road and since the present access road now is not broad enough, the businessman had attempted to construct the second access road, reportedly with the help of a Mawanella Pradeshiya Sabha member.

However, due to protests from people of the area, it is reported this plan had been temporarily suspended, but residents fear that the duo would go to any length if they were not confronted.

The businessman is said to have got the well situated in the path of the proposed access road, closed so that the tyre manufacturing unit had to depend on the water from the nearby Maoya for its water requirements, via a pump.