The Hon. Kumara Jayakody - Minister of Energy
Minister Kumara Jayakody responded to a question on two rural electrification projects, Annaasigala and Unakanda Ambakolaara, explaining their origins from requests made to the President’s Secretariat and to the CEB, and stating that the CEB Board approved implementation on 7 May 2024 after technical review and estimates. He gave the project costs as Rs. 36.64 million and Rs. 36.23 million respectively, noted that Forest Conservation approval for tree removal had been sought but the Department instead instructed construction through surveyed land without removing trees, and said relevant documents were placed in the Library. He stated that both projects had been temporarily suspended due to a contentious situation, with physical progress at 60% and 75% at the time of suspension.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, I answer as follows:
¶ 02 (a) (i) There are two power projects: - Annaasigala Project: A group of farmers from Annaasigala village made a request to H.E. the President at the time; the Presidential Secretariat (then Director General Keerthi Tennakoon) referred it to the Ministry of Power and Energy, and by letter dated 2022.10.10 an Additional Secretary referred it to the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) General Manager for necessary action. - Unakanda Ambakolaara Project: Former State Minister of Industries and Badulla District MP Hon. Chamara Sampath Dissanayake requested via letter dated 2023.02.18 to the CEB Deputy General Manager (Uva).
¶ 03 (ii) Approval to implement under the CEB’s Rural Electrification Programme was granted by the CEB Board on 2024.05.07. (Annex 01)
¶ 04 (iii) Technical review was conducted; recommendations were obtained; an estimate was prepared and approved by the CEB Board.
¶ 05 (iv) Expenditure: - Annaasigala: Rs. 36,644,504.99 - Unakanda Ambakolaara: Rs. 36,229,038.28
¶ 06 (v) Approval from the Department of Forest Conservation to remove trees was applied for on 2024.07.30. (Annex 02)
¶ 07 (vi) In response, on 2024.08.12 the Department instructed to construct the line through surveyed land without tree removal. (Annex 03)
¶ 08 (vii) Copies of letters referred to in Annexes 01, 02 and 03 are placed in the Library.
¶ 09 Due to a contentious situation, these projects have been temporarily suspended; at suspension, physical progress was 60% (Annaasigala) and 75% (Unakanda).
¶ 10 (b) Not applicable.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Saturday, 15 March 2025 ·No. 1745317151078324 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/11534
Cite as: The Hon. Kumara Jayakody - Minister of Energy. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 15 March 2025. No. 1745317151078324. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/11534