The Hon. Kumara Jayakody - Minister of Energy
The Minister of Energy provided data on Ceylon Electricity Board staffing, stating that the CEB has 22,135 permanent employees, 150 casual employees, 95 contract employees, 26 NVQ-qualified trainees, and 56 workers deployed through Sri Lanka Energies. He reported that salary, allowance and bonus payments are recorded annually, and that tasks such as line installation, pit digging and disconnections have been outsourced, with contractor payments rising from Rs. 1,643 million in 2015 to Rs. 4,370 million in 2024. He stated that there are no excess employees against the approved cadre and justified outsourcing as more economical for labour-intensive, urgent or short-term work, particularly where using technical staff would exceed the Public Utilities Commission-approved disconnection charge.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 The answer is as follows.
¶ 02 (a) (i) Employee categories and numbers at the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB): - Permanent: 22,135 - Casual: 150 - Contract: 95 - NVQ-qualified trainees: 26 - In addition, 56 employees obtained through the CEB subsidiary Sri Lanka Energies are deployed in service.
¶ 03 (ii) to (iii) Amounts paid as salaries, allowances and bonuses to employees, and outsourcing: - CEB pays salaries, allowances and bonuses annually; specified figures by category and year have been recorded, and tasks such as installing electricity lines, digging pits and disconnections have been outsourced.
¶ 04 (iv) Payments to contractors for the above tasks from 2015 to 2024 (LKR million): 2015: 1,643; 2016: 1,608; 2017: 1,711; 2018: 1,932; 2019: 2,383; 2020: 2,455; 2021: 2,616; 2022: 2,501; 2023: 3,464; 2024: 4,370.
¶ 05 (v) There are no excess employees relative to the approved cadre at CEB. Field employees are NVQ Level II/IV technical grades, remunerated on the technical salary scale. For labour-intensive tasks like pit digging and routine disconnections, using CEB’s technical staff would impose additional personnel and transport costs above the Public Utilities Commission approved disconnection charge (Rs. 800), hence outsourcing is more economical. Contracting is also used for short-term and urgent works that cannot be handled daily by existing staff.
¶ 06 (vi) Not applicable.
¶ 07 (b) Not applicable.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Friday, 7 February 2025 ·No. 1739786070060795 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Kumara Jayakody - Minister of Energy. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 7 February 2025. No. 1739786070060795. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/22973