The Hon. (Dr.) Prasanna Gunasena
Hon. (Dr.) Prasanna Gunasena stated that although railways were originally developed mainly for freight, rail now carries only about 2 per cent of national freight, or around 2 million metric tons annually. He said Budget 2025 proposed a logistics hub at Thambuttegama, with a Rs. 100 million feasibility study underway, and noted ongoing surveys to extend rail access to the Kankesanthurai fuel storage complex and KKS Port to improve petroleum and freight transport from the North.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Railways began primarily for freight. Currently, rail carries only about 2% of freight—around 1.99–2.1 million metric tons annually. In Budget 2025, we proposed developing a logistics hub at Thambuttegama; a Rs. 100 million feasibility study is underway. We are extending the line to the Kankesanthurai fuel storage complex to move petroleum by rail; surveys are ongoing, including extension to KKS Port. This will enhance freight movement from the North.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Thursday, 9 October 2025 ·No. 22973 ·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/7488
Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Prasanna Gunasena. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 9 October 2025. No. 22973. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/7488