Showpiece rest house going to ruin

Text and pix by Jeevananda S Kaviratne

The Ambalangoda rest house which was once a showpiece of Ambalangoda town is in a deplorable state. All the buildings have become dilapidated and the main gate has been damaged. The rest house premises have become a haunt of drug addicts, drug traffickers and all other persons involved in nefarious activities.

The board at the entrance to the rest house

The Dutch period court house is still found within the precincts of the rest house. This building was later used as a Village Tribunal to resolve minor legal cases of the villagers and the building has been identified by the Archaeological Department to be protected as a historical monument.

As a result of continual mismanagement and due to financial constraints of the Urban Council, the management of the rest house was handed over to the Urban Development Authority (UDA).

The rest house was then leased for a period of several years by the UDA to a hotelier from Weligama who had promised to pay a monthly rent of Rs. 75,000 but had failed to pay it as agreed. The hotelier is said to have defaulted millions of rupees to the UDA.

It has now been revealed that the UDA authorized officer who visited the rest house to discuss the outstanding arrears had become an intimate friend of the hotelier. The exact amount of arrears due to the UDA was never brought to the notice of the higher officials until after the sudden death of the UDA officer.

The dilapidated building	The broken main gate

Due to the negligence of the UDA both the Urban Council and the Government has lost considerable income, amounting to millions of rupees. The UC Chairman Aruna Pradeep said the UDA had to pay more than nine million rupees to the Urban Council.

He has appealed to the Local Government Minister to hand over the management of the Ambalangoda rest house back to the Urban Council as it has a great potential for development.