GSMB submits investigation report on rehabilitation of excavation sites to Environment Minister

 

Accordingly, the investigation report prepared by them on the rehabilitation of excavation sites in Sri Lanka was handed over to the Minister of Environment Mahinda Amaraweera on the 15th February. Chairman of the institute Manjula Pranasad Hewage and Director General Sajjana Silva were also present at the occasion.

 

Excavation permits issued by the GSMB have turned some of the excavations into death traps. Some places are even dug deep enough to look horribly large. Illegal abandonment of these sites after the end of the excavations could endanger the lives of humans as well as wildlife. Therefore, the Minister of Environment instructed GSMB to immediately commence a program to rehabilitate such excavations.

 

According to the investigation report, there are still 950 non-rehabilitated excavation sites between 2012 and March 2021. Also, rehabilitation work has been completed in 2491 places so far. A bank guarantee is kept for rehabilitation when the excavation permit is issued. So far, 70 percent of the land on which the rehabilitation work has been completed has been repaid with a bank guarantee.

 

Minister Mahinda Amaraweera instructed to take legal action against those who have not rehabilitated the sites properly after the completion of the excavations and to ensure that such establishments and individuals are not re-licensed. The Minister also said that the rehabilitation work has been completed and instructed to re-examine whether the work has been carried out properly at the places where the bank guarantees were withdrawn.

 

The Minister also stated that he has received reports that some officials have committed irregularities in these activities as well. The Minister also said that some of the excavation sites had not been rehabilitated properly but the bail money had been withdrawn by submitting false information that they had been rehabilitated.

 

However, the Minister said that his goal was to rehabilitate these excavations as attractive places for the public to visit without fear or suspicion and that he had launched a program called ‘Let’s Listen to the Earth – මිහිමවට කන්දෙමු ‘.