The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake
Expected benefits of the Galle Port development include breakwaters to protect Galle Fort and Galle Road, a safe harbour for southern fishing boats, a dedicated passenger terminal for cruise tourism, mixed-use development near Dewata beach, and employment generation. The answer states that the original EIA was completed in the early 2000s and a Supplementary EIA for land reclamation was finalized on 9 January 2025, with public comments from the consultation period now under evaluation. It further notes that stakeholder engagement has occurred and social impacts and mitigation measures have been identified.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Answer tabled.
¶ 02 (a) (i) Expected benefits include: - Construction of two breakwaters creating a large calm-water basin in Galle Bay, thereby: • Protecting Galle Fort from wave action; • Protecting Galle Road from wave action; • Providing a safe harbour for southern fishermen/fishing boats during storms. - Establishing a dedicated passenger terminal to facilitate large cruise ships, contributing to regional tourism via Galle Port development. - Mixed-use developments on reclaimed land near Dewata beach to attract local and foreign tourists. - Generation of direct and indirect employment through these developments.
¶ 03 (ii) In the early 2000s, the EIA for breakwaters, passenger terminal with berthing, dredging of the harbour basin, and support to nautical operations was completed. A Supplementary EIA for reclamation adjacent to Dewata beach was completed by a consultant, and the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau finalized it on 09.01.2025.
¶ 04 (iii) Public comments received during the public consultation from 28.11.2024 to 09.01.2025 under the Supplementary EIA are being evaluated by the consultant.
¶ 05 (iv) Stakeholder engagement has been obtained, and potential social impacts and mitigation measures have been identified.
¶ 06 (b) Does not arise.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 28 February 2025 ·No. 1741927369029372 ·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/26222
Cite as: The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 28 February 2025. No. 1741927369029372. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/26222