Monday, July 18, 2005

The highway network!


Sri Lanka Planned Highways
Originally uploaded by chandare.

Dear Madam President/Dear Highways Minister,

I found this article(written in 2001) in the government website 3 years ago and couldn't wait until 2005!
It says ,

"Sri Lanka will have four major expressways along with eight flyovers (PDF) by the year 2005. A spokesman for the Ministry of Highways said that this was part of a massive plan by the government to improve the infrastructure facilities in the country."

Will my grand children(your great-grand children ) be able to use these super-expressways if we if we build them in the current pace or was it 3005?

What is the current progress of each project?

When will we be able to use them ?

What is happening in the current southern expressway project?

Why does the southern highway keep shifting in the plan ?Is it to avoid using properties of members of parliament(UNP and SLFP both)?

When can a visitor from another country can get to the capital of the country from it's only international airport within a decent time frame?(thanks for the baseline road.)

Do you have any plans for the worsening traffic in Colombo and deteriorating transportation system in the country as a whole?

Have I lost my marbles to ask accountability from the Sri Lankan government ?

yours sincerely,

chandare

P.S.

After writing the above I checked http://www.mohsl.gov.lk/ .It says the time frame for 5 major projects is 2015.There are some spreadsheets named "progress reports " with lots of empty cells.They are calling for tenders again for CKE(Colombo Katunayake Expressway)!Ok let's cut them some slack( like we did for the past 50 years).Let's check in 2015 how far we have gone.

2 comments:

Chandare said...

shrooms are hard to find here.Must be meth,crack or the cheap glue I've been sniffing.
;-))

Anonymous said...

Dear Chandare,
Thank you for your concern about our precious national resource, the highways. As you know, our government has always placed the welfare of the citizens above petty party politics and narrow gain. As such, it is terrible that the accursed mongrels in the opposition keep blocking us at every quarter when we, the good guys, try to do well by our motherland.

But enough about that. We were talking about highways. Unfortunately, it seems that the aid that we were received from the Japanese government has mysteriously disappeared. Even more unfortunately, it seems that the money we spent on environmental assessments and the like has been wasted, because the environmentalists are up in arms about these projects. Obviously, a loyal voter such as yourself (who is hereby reminded to vote for us in the coming general elections) can see how these commie environmentalists have a tree trunk lodged up their asses ? So what if it's prime woodlands or nature reserves ? We need to build these roads. Our property is important. Who cares about a few trees, bushes and birds ? We suspect those traitorous dogs in the opposition of inciting these criminal elements.

And obviously, the worsening congestion in Colombo can be sorted out by introducing a congestion charge, by increasing duty and taxation on vehicles and shunting aside all of the revenue to things other than transport and highways. We need to send some money to the treasury boys somehow. Let's go back to the healthy practice of walking 2-3 miles. Enjoy the sights, sounds and beachfront in Colombo. Don't worry too much about the mounds of garbage piling up, those CMC boys are a bit late with their collections. And hey, you can always compete with the three wheeler guys by riding on a bicycle, right?

I trust you can see that these slight problems are all caused by the snivelling dogs in the opposition and I am sure you can understand how we would appreciate your vote in the coming general election.

Err.. should I say something about accountability or not ? What is that idiot smoking ? Accountability ? Us ? Does he know who I am ? I'll feed him his marbles if I catch him. The insolent dog. No, no. don't write all that down.

Yours sincerely,
.....