With clearly-marked roads, walkways and beautiful roundabouts being built all over Colombo, a lone fighter has won a small battle after a long and protracted war right in the heart of the city. For octogenarian Siri Peiris, earlier a well-known Civil Servant who headed the Census and Statistics Department, the ruling by Ombudsman Tissa Ekanayake [...]

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Octogenarian triumphs after long battle at Green Path

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With clearly-marked roads, walkways and beautiful roundabouts being built all over Colombo, a lone fighter has won a small battle after a long and protracted war right in the heart of the city.
For octogenarian Siri Peiris, earlier a well-known Civil Servant who headed the Census and Statistics Department, the ruling by Ombudsman Tissa Ekanayake is a small triumph, but a triumph nevertheless.

Mr. Peiris has been able to secure a pavement for those residents, himself included, off Green Path (Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha), who have homes on the right side of the road, when coming from the Flower Road (Sir Ernest de Silva Mawatha) junction. “All this while, we had to step straight on to the road from our gates and with traffic whizzing past, it was a death trap,” he said, explaining that although then President J.R. Jayewardene initiated the ‘State Drive’ with much fanfare nearly 30 years ago, the area at the top of Green Path just before it met Flower Road was not widened.

The development of the State Drive from Kollupitiya to the new Parliament at Sri Jayawardhanapura-Kotte was initiated in 1985, with the British company, Balfour Beatty, undertaking the work with the finest cement and British technology, he says going back in time. There was a street-line demarcation, reiterates Mr. Peiris who has several bulging but meticulously kept files on the issue. However, it was political expediency that shelved the State Drive matter at Green Path because of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress premises, at that time under powerful Minister S. Thondaman.

It was Mr. Thondaman’s Saumya Vasa property which, according to Mr. Peiris, effectively put paid to the grand plans of the State Drive, leaving a bottle-neck there. Starting development of the State Drive from Sri Jayewardhanapura-Kotte, it is ironic that not only a large number of boutiques were demolished after acquiring the land but that to expand the roundabout near the Devi Balika Girls’ School, bodies were dug up disturbing the dead at the Kanatte General Cemetery while a magnificent Bo-tree was chopped down, but Green Path was not widened because it went into the Saumya Vasa garden, he laments.

This octogenarian is adamant that there was no pavement on either side of Green Path, only a horse-track during colonial times. Much later during the development of the State Drive even after red paint had demarcated the street-line, a top government official at that time had sent emissaries to halt the work, even as Mr. Peiris watched in dismay from his home. It was to prevent road expansion that a pavement was constructed on the side of Saumya Vasa, he alleges.

On a complaint made by persistent Mr. Peiris, Ombudsman Ekanayake had asked the engineers of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) to survey the bottle-neck on October 31, last year.

The one-way traffic plan now being implemented has aggravated the bottle-neck with an increasing flow of vehicles, Mr. Ekanayake conceded. This is why he ordered on November 3, last year, that a walkway or pavement should be established for the benefit of the residents.

When contacted by the Sunday Times, CMC’s Director of Traffic Design and Road Safety, Nihal Wickramaratne, explained that as there was no allocation from this year’s budget for the pavement which was ordered at the end of last year, provision has been made in next year’s budget. The pavement would be established in about two months into next year (2013), he assured.

Although it was long before his time, he says that in 1985 when the State Drive to Parliament from Kollupitiya was envisaged, land was acquired and the road widened.

However, for some reason buried in time, the State Drive seems to have stopped at the top of Green Path, where it meets Flower Road, it is learnt. The land for the junction had been acquired but not the land along Green Path to Liberty Plaza roundabout.Now with traffic flowing one way, there seems to be no need to widen Green Path, said Mr. Wickramaratne, but assured that the pavement would be in place by 2013.

After a three-decade battle against injustice, it will be a fitting ‘new year gift’ for Mr. Peiris.




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