Hundred day Crash Program:

Mega road development project 'Ran Aruna' in Gampaha

Mahanama VITHANAGE-Malwana Group Correspondent

Gampaha lies in the Western Province of Sri Lanka. Its area is 1,386.6 km2. The district consist of 13 electoral divisions, including 2 Municipal Councils, 5 Urban Councils, 12 Pradeshiya Sabas and 1,177 Grama Niladari divisions. The total population in the district is 2,165,096. The 13 electoral divisions D.S. Divisions are Divulapitiya, Katana, Negombo, Minuwangoda, Mirigama, Attanagalle, Gampaha, Ja-Ela, Wattala, Mahara, Dompe and Biyagama.

Carpeting of Walgammulla-Unagahahandiya road in progress. Malwana Group Correspondent - Mahanama Vithanage

A mega road development project got underway in the district recently. It is being handled at the direction of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the guidance of Senior Presidential Advisor and Parliamentarian Basil Rajapaksa. Accordingly, 345 roads in the Gampaha District will be developed under the Jathika Saviya Gama Neguma program.

The expenditure to be incurred will be in the region of 3.5 billion rupees. Then Ran Aruna program is due to be completed within a year. This is being done on top of the huge sums spent on roads in the recent years. Since road development is a basic requirement for the material development of a community, the government is spending so much on development of roads in the Gampaha District. This is done to uplift the facilities in the district. The government constructed new roads and renovated the existing roads in the district.

The government expended Rs. 10,826.50 million for the development of roads in the district under 189 projects during the last four years.

Accordingly the government, under the decentralized budget, Gama Neguma scheme, and Maga Neguma scheme spent Rs. 1,291.7 million for 27 projects in the year 2006, Rs. 2,334.8 million for 93 projects in 2007, Rs. 2,268 million for 51 projects in 2008 and Rs. 4,932 million for 18 projects in the year 2009.

For the development of rural roads the government spent Rs. 307.7 million for 945 projects in the year 2006, Rs. 538.7 million for 1,665 projects in 2007, Rs. 1,331.6 million for 2,327 projects in 2008 and Rs. 822.5 million for 2,521 projects in the year 2009. As a result of these development work most of the muddy and sandy roads in the districts have been replaced with concrete roads.

The 100 Day Crash Program

According to Sampath Walisinghe - Gampaha Ranarana Project Coordinator, the crash program covers all infrastructure development projects in Gampaha district. Water supply, irrigation, agriculture, electricity, education, health sectors are the main sectors. Short-term projects are being undertaken these days.

What takes pride of place are rural roads, rural electrification, rural irrigation, rural water supply. Here, for the sake of this discussion, we concentrate only on the road development.

More than 100 numbers of machinery and equipment are used in roads (and irrigation) development projects. Rs. 2,000 million is spent on 2,000 projects on the basis of nearly 150 million rupees per electorate. 200 million rupees spent on Gampaha city limit roads to widen and to lay the asphalt carpet. 660 km roads belonging to Provincial Council are being asphalt-carpeted. About 60 percent of the work is complete at the moment.

425 roads belonging to Road Development Authority are asphalt carpeted. 400 rural roads belonging to Regional Councils are to be concreted.

Weerasinghe added, "People do not want gravel laid on the rural roads. They ask for concrete. The main roads must be carpeted."

Need identification is done in three ways. The first is through political authority.

The next is on public requests and the most important third way, through the daily pocket meetings conducted in opinion leaders' houses in the evenings.

Work continues non stop day and night. Equipment for road construction is hired from the army and the navy. A special feature is that no contracts are given to repair roads. Work is done by the relevant government or local department or authority.

A Road Construction Observation Tour was undertaken on 13 March to make a first hand assessment of the work being done by 21 local media personnel of print and electronic media.

Sumana Weeraratne was met at the Meewala junction on the road from Thihariya to Rukgahawila. This road branches off the Watupitiwala road from Nittambuwa. She said that she had been living in the area for more than twenty years but never saw such interest in development as seen these days.

She emphasized that all credit goes to the President and wanted to thank the energetic Basil Rajapaksa MP who has come as a blessing. Rukgahawila Thihariya road was in such a bad condition, trudging even on foot was difficult, not to speak about vehicles. Now the road is completely laid with asphalt carpet. Buses run 13 turns a day. "We need roads; good roads. The other types of development will follow," was her view.

At Rukgahawila Junction Executive Engineer, Regional Road Development Authority W.A. Wijepala a dynamic personality who moves about inspecting road development work in the area was met. He said 1.4 of Rukgahawila-Gonagala road was done within 2 weeks. The Nittambuwa-Walgammulla about 8 km being done. Work is done non-stop night and day.

The media team after observing machinery at work on roads came to see how at Warana Raja Maha Vihara, the access road had be done, paving 200 m by laying cement bricks/blocks by the Road Development Authority. The road had to be raised before paving. It was a beautiful sight to the eye.

Chief Incumbent of Warana Vihara Rev. Dompe Pugnananda Thera hailed HE for his great and superior leadership. Advent of Basil Rajapakse MP to Gampaha is a blessing. He comes with experience gathered from "Neganahira Navodaya' and 'Uthuru Wasanthaya.' The road development done by him is unparalled in the history of the area.

The Warana road from Yakkala is widened. New culverts are built. Road beds are raised. Asphalt carpet will be laid. Work is continuing rapidly. This is 'Vishvakarma' work. Roads are being upgraded every where.