The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake - Minister of Transport, Highways, Ports and Civil Aviation and Leader of the House of Parliament

¶ 01 We answer the questions asked, and I have done so accurately. If you had asked about the overall state of railway services, I would have addressed that too. Sri Lanka Railways is in a distressing condition. To operate reliably without frequent delays and failures we need at least 70–75 locomotives; we have 44. The railway has been chronically underfunded for over two decades, while different periods have also seen waste, fraud and loss. Another key issue is the severe shortage of technical officers and engineers, exacerbated by policies encouraging public servants to go abroad. We have taken proposals to Cabinet to recruit essential staff; without that, the service will deteriorate further. This has been a planned destruction over time, and we are working to arrest it.