The Colombo Municipal Council has drawn up plans to develop roads to meet the demands of the business sector for efficient transport and travel.
Mayor K. Ganeshalingam presenting his first budget has set apart Rs. 1.6 billion for better roads out of an estimated expenditure of Rs. 4.4 billion in 1997.
The roads picked for development are: the Marine Drive and Duplication Road extension, Olcott Mawatha, Sangharaja Mawatha, New Bastian Mawatha, private bus stand area, Maradana Junction, Dean's Road, Havelock Road, Grandpass Road and Rosemead Road.
About 50 road development projects are included in this programme. A high rise car park over Lotus Road, two other car parks in Fort area, Japan's gift of 75 trucks and other equipment for garbage clearance valued at Rs. 400 million is scheduled to arrive in Colombo shortly.
Commissioning a sanitary landfill and composting plant, tramcar service and connected arcade development, central bus stand and a shopping centre with a 100 room rest house in Fort, a municipal band, wholesale and retail vegetable market complex, redeveloping Wellawatte and Stace Road public markets, constructing 3 hospitals to ease congestion at the National Hospital, 27 flood control projects, drug addicts rehabilitation centre, shifting the Wanatamulla Home for Elders to the newly constructed home at Battaramulla, opening the Kirulapone Public Market complex, 3000 retail shops on top of the proposed Central Bus Stand, are projects earmarked to commence in 1997.
The municipal bank will be named the Municipal Commercial and Development Bank.
"Lethargic revenue recovery cannot be allowed. Targets will be set for revenue recovery and the officers must excel in out performing target for rates", he said. Rates branch is arranging the seizure and sale of properties for the non-payment of rates about Rs. 100,000 from January onwards.
Rs. 611 million has been estimated for solid waste management which the mayor says is a core service issue.
The budget was passed with 29 (UNP) voting for and 1 (SLMP) against. 14 (SLFP, LSSP and CP) abstained.
Senior Superintendent of Police, Vavuniya, Gamini De Silva has confirmed that not a single person has been removed from the refugee camps in his division without the permission of the police.
The S.S.P. was responding to a question by Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene, a UNP MP, about a news item in a Sinhala tabloid, which alleged that he had removed four refugees from a camp in Vavuniya and brought them to Colombo when he returned from a medical camp at the Vavuniya Base Hospital about five weeks ago.
Meanwhile, Dr. Rajendran P. Nadarajah, a Sri Lankan Tamil, who is a member of President Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) and who was also among eleven doctors who accompanied Dr. Jayawardene on the medical mission has written to President Chandrika Kumaratunga stating the news report was false.
"The news item has alleged that Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene with the help of senior police and army officials has removed four detainees. I travelled with Dr. Jayawardene from Vavuniya to Colombo and can vouch for the fact that he did not bring anybody from the Vavuniya Camp and anybody with commonsense will understand if Dr. Jayawardene was upto any mischief, that he would not have taken any doctors or journalists along with him," he has stated.
Dr. Nadarajah has also charged that certain journalists were trying to arouse communal feelings or trying to jeopardise President Kumaratunga's peace effort.
Graded principals have appealed in a letter to the President for revision in their salaries saying it has been two years since the Ministry of Education promised to increase the salaries.
The graded Principals Society has appealed to the Minister on several occasions on the matter, and the Minister had promised to raise their salaries but no action had been taken so far, the letter said.
Many of these principals have been recruited on account of their seniority and qualifications but they are grossly underpaid, it said.
PERC boss and Bank of Ceylon Chairman Rajan Asirwatham is likely to quit his government jobs, "The Sunday Times" learns.
Unconfirmed reports in business circles said Mr. Asirwatham had already conveyed his decision to the President, but no reasons for his quitting were known.
Mr. Asirwatham neither admitted nor denied the speculation. When asked yesterday by "The Sunday Times" he merely said: "Don't talk about these things during the Christmas Season", and hung up.
Continue to the News/Comment page 3
Return to the News/Comment contents page
Please send your comments and suggestions on this web site to
info@suntimes.is.lk or to
webmaster@infolabs.is.lk