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Nugegoda: Main roads repaired, by-roads ignored
Despite his onerous responsibilities President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has found time to devote to maintaining clean cities with expanded roads and paved surfaces.
This is what he did along the road from Mirihana in Nugegoda, his area of residence, up to Maharagama. New colour signal lights have come up and plants in concrete containers have lined up the streets.
However, off the main road in question, it is a different story. One such case is the Wijerama Road which connects the High Level Road with a distance of just one kilometre. The cost for this road has been placed at Rs 80 million–that is without the demolition of any building or houses but only the expansion of the road.
The pictures here speak of the sorry state of the road and the shoddy work carried out by the contractor.
The Western Provincial Road Development Authority Executive Engineer S. L. Jayanetti had a litany of reasons.
He said “I admit there was a delay. The contractor asked for more money. The tar has gone up in price. The contractor says that the tendered price is high.”
However, a member of the Sri Jayawardenapura-Kotte Municipal Council said “people in the area have been complaining to me about the bad quality of work and the colossal waste of public funds. The work remains halted and that is a great inconvenience to the people.”