Letters to the Editor

31st October 1999

'Go to Kotte and live in splendid isolation'

I feel sorry for the Joint Committee of Residents of Barnes Place and Horton Place. They are crying for the moon.

By enacting regulations now, the Urban Development Authority (UDA) cannot unscramble a scrambled egg! Colombo is what it is today, after 500 years of development, since the advent of the first European invader in 1505.

Anyone who reads R.L. Brohier's Lands, Maps and Surveys and his more recent (1985) book, 'City' of Colombo will realize how commercialisation has enveloped the greater part of the city.

I called for the "City of Colombo Development Plan 1999" from the UDA and was told it was still with the printer (though coloured advertisements appeared in the newspapers).

Even if there is such a plan, the UDA cannot ignore the fact that both the Asha Central Hospital and Musaeus College were established long before any of the current dissidents,came into residence. When they bought land they should have realised that these institutions would grow.

Asha Central had to expand for several reasons. One was the demand for hospital beds as a result of the population explosion and the other, the advancement of medical science and technology.

In keeping with these developments Asha Central will soon install the only helical CT scanner in the country and a mammogram (to diagnose cancer of the breasts). The hospital has already purchased a top-of-the range Pentax Video Endoscopy System to look inside the alimentary tract. The investment for the new equipment will be Rs. 40 million.

After April 1998 over Rs. 57 million has been spent to upgrade the hospital. Fourteen new medical officers were recruited and several nurses and orderlies appointed. The ICU was upgraded with ventilators etc. Several leading citizens who were admitted almost dead (cardiac arrest) were resuscitated.

With all these and many more improvements being carried out, the number of patients who come to the hospital will definitely increase and naturally there will also be more vehicles.

The Residents' Committee has suggested that we move out. Why don't they move to much larger premises in 'serene surroundings' leaving Barnes Place to Musaeus and Asha Central?

It's much easier for these few families to migrate to Kotte and live in splendid isolation, than to move 10,000 girls from Barnes Place and a hospital with 100 beds and 450 employees.

I have had no intimation from the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) or UDA to the effect that we should accommodate the vehicles of our patients and visitors within the premises. Anyway, this is an impossibility, till I manufacture inflatable rubber cars and vans which can be deflated and packed in a garage!

Traffic congestion is not limited to the roads leading to Asha Central alone. All the roads in Colombo are congested and very few institutions, public and private, can provide parking space. In the CMC itself visitors are not allowed to take their vehicles in. They are parked on the roads.

The mode of travel of citizen Perera is the three-wheeler and it should not be a 'disturbing feature' for the residents who seem to believe that everyone can afford luxury cars.

Asha Central is not responsible for the traffic congestion on the "State Drive". There are two roundabouts and two traffic lights which cause the congestion.

According to the residents "any enterprise, by any citizen which conforms to the law of the country is a national undertaking."

As neither Asha Central nor Musaeus has broken any laws, they are by this definition itself national institutions.

Dr. Neville Fernando
Chairman
Asha Central Hospitals Limited

When it was unusually late…

I made a trip to Trichy with three others to visit the Miraculous Church in Vellankanni. Our return on UL 132 on October 12 was traumatic. When I telephoned to confirm our seats, I was asked to call on the morning of the day of the flight, to check if it was on time. When I called at 9.20 that morning, I was told that the flight would be on time and checking in was at 10.30 a.m. (the latest 10.50 a.m.).

As we had heard of passengers being off-loaded, even with confirmed seats, we were at the airport by 10.30 a.m. and were told that there would be a delay.

How is it that the office did not know, just half an hour earlier about the delay? Those who have been to Trichy know what a mess that airport is. We had to stand outside in the hot sun with our bags, as we were not allowed into the building.

After about an hour the passengers were herded like cattle into a mini-van, taken to a nearby hotel and given a vegetarian lunch. When we got back to the airport the check-in staff weighed our cabin bags too. I have travelled quite a bit and this was the first time my cabin bag was weighed and we were made to pay for 'excess' weight. When we were in the lounge I noticed people with huge boxes and packages, and wondered how they managed to carry such stuff as cabin luggage!

Flight UL 132 was almost three hours late.

At Katunayake, we had a 45 minute wait near the conveyor belt before being told that our bags were not loaded at Trichy.

Sixty four bags had not been loaded. We were asked to check the next flight two days later and go back to Katunayake to collect the bags, that too only between 9 a.m. and 4.30 p.m.

Can Sri Lankan Airlines please answer:

* Why was the Trichy office unaware that there would be a long delay just 1, 1/2 hours earlier?

* If they did not load 64 bags, why were we not told as we disembarked at Katunayake saving all that time we spent near the conveyor belt?

* How come there was 'no room' when every passenger carries at least one big bag?

* When our baggage is mishandled by an airline, why can't the airline bring them to Colombo and prevent further inconvenience to passengers?

I have travelled Air Lanka only three times. The first time I travelled Business Class, Bangkok-Colombo, we had a delay of five hours,and after we came to the airport we were not even given a glass of water. The second time, I went to New Delhi, I had an extra 24 hours there, due to a flight delay. The Trichy trip was the last.

I hope that I will not be compelled to travel Sri Lankan Airlines in the future.

Rupa Goonewardene
Dehiwela

All roads…

In the West they do it at night

Road repairs in Gampola are causing immense hardship to the public as vehicles are held up for a long time.

In European countries, repairs to highways are done at nights.

Why can't we do the same? Otherwise roads that are under repair should be closed for a certain period of time and traffic diverted. During the late 40s, Beach Road in Matara was repaired with the aid of lamps in the night. Today, with modern machinery and electricity, repairs at nights should not be a problem to the Road Development Authority.

Jinadasa Wickremasuriya
Gampola

Clearer roads, fewer dangers

As a daily traveller on the Negombo-Colombo Road, I have noticed that a large vehicle cannot move to the extreme left, allowing a faster vehicle to overtake it, due to obstacles along the road. The overtaking vehicle has to go over the centre markings which could cause serious head-on collisions with on-coming traffic.

People have encroached onto the road. Most wayside shop-keepers display their wares almost on the road. Garage owners repair vehicles by the roadside and display boards too obstruct the road.

This has resulted in a space-crunch with vehicles having to travel on the centre of the road.

Road widening is underway at much expense. Yet this exercise is useless if this type of encroachment continues.

B.Joseph
Negombo

The holes, Mr. Minister

The rains have caused extensive damage to many roads in the city and suburbs. This shows the quality of work done by contractors, sub-contractors and even employees of the Road Development Authority.

With more rain expected, the potholes once covered up have opened up again. The taxpayers' money is being wasted on shoddy work.

As repairing roads is as important as constructing new roads, the Minister concerned should look into this.

Naheer Taip,
Wattala

Return to Plus Contents