10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. (Dr.) Pathmanathan Sathiyalingam

Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi· National List· 10 November 2025 ·Oral question: Oral Question: Vavuniya-Kilinochchi Section of Northern Railway Line – Dilapidated Railway Crossings (Q.1085/2025)

InfrastructureEthnic Reconciliation & Devolution
AI summary generated by gpt-5.5

Hon. (Dr.) Pathmanathan Sathiyalingam raised concerns that, during post-war reconstruction of the Northern Line, traditional railway crossings in areas not yet resettled were closed, including a long-used pathway near Omanthai station. He asked whether the Ministry, with local authorities and the Railway Department, would consult the public to identify and provide necessary crossings within the year, and welcomed the proposal for parallel roads along the railway line to address residents’ access issues promptly.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Minister, thank you for the reply. When the Northern Line was rebuilt after the war, many areas with crossings did not yet have resettled populations; long-used traditional crossings were closed. For example, near the Omanthai station, there is a crossing on a pathway in use for over 400 years, which you would know. My first supplementary: As you said, could your Ministry, together with local authorities and the Railway Department, identify the necessary routes in these areas in consultation with the public and provide them within this year? I also welcome your suggestion to provide parallel roads along the railway line. Can these actions be taken promptly to resolve the people’s issues without delay?

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Monday, 10 November 2025 ·No. 22753 ·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/20441

Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Pathmanathan Sathiyalingam. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 10 November 2025. No. 22753. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/20441