Govt must pursue Colombo Metro Master Plan prepared this year, CILT chief urges
Sri Lanka’s transport and logistics sector has urged the Government to revive a transport master plan that was drawn up for the Colombo Metropolitan with experts during the Prime Minister’s 100-day programme which appeared to have gone off the radar.Niral Kadawatharatchie, Chairman, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), speaking at the Annual International Conference of CILT held in Colombo last week, said the plan was prepared with senior CILT members but for some reason has gone into hibernation. He urged the government to activate it as fast as possible.
He said that with the spiraling high costs of energy, labour, etc compared to countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Cambodia or Vietnam, Sri Lanka’s potential to be a manufacturing country is bleak unless it is transformed into a ‘service centre’ like Singapore, Hong Kong or Dubai.
In those countries there is free movement of risks, without any hindrance or cumbersome procedure, unlike in Sri Lanka. The archaic Customs Ordinance which was formed in 1869 is about 150 years old, he said, urging that this be changed to suit the present context.
Suggesting that the railway system in the country be strengthened, he said that in 1979 goods hauled by the railway was 34 per cent, but today it has dropped to a meagre 2 per cent. Due to this reason, there is heavy traffic congestion and a large number of trucks are on the road. Some of this freight should be sent through the railway, he said, also drawing attention of the government on electrification of the railway.Eran Wickramaratne, Deputy Minister of Public Enterprise Development, delivering the keynote address said that corruption in the country is plaguing the country’s economy and one way of containing it would be transparency which could be made through electronic devices (computerisation). He said that in this sector corruption has become endemic while people think that corruption can grease the wheels of the system.
He said that the Customs and Ports should urgently introduce electronic document processing to ensure accuracy, speed and integrity of the logistic process and indicated that the country’s soft-infrastructure appeared to be archaic in the context of competing nations.
He said that logistics come under several ministries and queried whether there is sufficient coherence in the way the Ministries of Ports, Transport and Public Enterprises operate with regard to Sri Lanka’s logistics.Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake noted that the government is determined to deliver what the people want and not what the government want and assured that the shipping and logistics in the country would be put into its place to develop the country’s economy.
The government is taking steps to streamline cumbersome procedures and issues such as difficulty in documentation and others related matters to shipping and logistics industry. The risk taking of the private sector in the country has become a big problem, he asserted. He called upon the industry to wake up, use the talents, absorb risks and move forward. He said that they would make Sri Lanka to look as ‘foreign operation destination’, by bringing in talent and foreign capital.He said that plans are under way to utilise the assets available in such places like SriLankan Airlines and the Mattala Airport to reverse their loss making into high level profit making organisations.