Transport and Highways and Mass Media Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardhana yesterday said that the Government of India has expressed its willingness to provide 20 train engines worth Rs.16 billion as a grant to Sri Lanka.
Speaking at a press briefing at the Government Information Department, Minister Dr. Gunawardhana said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made the grant, on a written request made by Minister Gunawardhana to the former Indian High Commissioner in Colombo Gopal Baglay. He said that each of the 20 train engines is worth Rs. 800 million.
“After I took up this Ministry, the former Indian High Commissioner, Gopal Baglay did us a big favour on my request to build our railway service, just as he gave us a lot of financial support to get out of the economic crisis.
“Therefore, I, as the Minister, wrote to the Indian High Commissioner to help us as we had a huge shortage of locomotives and we could not afford capital expenditure to buy trains at this time and loan assistance will not be available until the existing debt is restructured.
“At this time, I would like to thank the Indian Government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and High Commissioner Baglay for agreeing to provide 20 locomotive engines that are currently running and spare parts for three more trains,” the Minister said.
He said that the Sri Lanka Railway service, which for long has provided a public transport service, is in a very bad state and all sections have reached a point where it is impossible to maintain it.
“The reason for this is that the Railway Department has been making losses for a long time and is not able to reinvest and increase the efficiency as required. Due to this, much work in the Railways had been done under loan assistance. Railway carriages, railway lines and railway spare parts have been procured under foreign loan assistance.
“Our Railway service has received loan assistance through the aid of the Colombo Plan, Canadian aid, Indian Credit Line, the Asian Development Bank and others,” the Minister said.
“To maintain a good train service, the tracks must be in proper condition. Due to the economic crisis, there was no way to get the required quantity of rail tracks for many years.
“Therefore, we explained this situation and obtained 10,000 tracks under ADB assistance. In 2014, one part of the complete reconstruction of the railway line from Maho to Omanthai, which had not been rebuild for a hundred years, was completed under the Indian loan scheme, which had been stalled for many years. Last January we started to completely repair the section from Anuradhapura to Maho. As a result, the railway line from Anuradhapura to Omanthai was able to be transformed into a modern line providing a speed of 100 kmph,” the Minister said.
Additional General Manager of the Railways V.S. Polwattage said that three officers had gone to India to inspect the locomotives and only US$ 80 was spent by the Sri Lankan Government for each of them as the cost was borne by India. He said in addition, 65 persons will participate in a three-day technical training as well and the cost will be borne by India.
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