State Minister of Provincial Councils & Local Government, Janaka Wakkumbura, revealed plans to fully map all roads belonging to local government (LG) institutions by the year 2025. Speaking at a press conference themed ‘Collective Path to a Stable Country’ held at the Presidential Media Centre (PMC) on Thursday (July 27), the state minister stated that a special gazette notification would be published following the completion of the road mapping process.
This initiative, implemented after 36 years, aims to identify the roads under the purview of relevant local government bodies. In the first phase, a total of 49,200 roads in the North-Western Province have already been marked. The mapping of roads covering a distance of up to 21,000km is being carried out at a rate of Rs. 102 per kilometer.
To address areas without local government-owned bridges, the state minister announced the construction of 160 new Bridge Kits, with 22 Bridge Kits already under construction. The ‘Regional Bridge Kits Project’ has been allocated a budget of Rs. 5,000 million for this year, and a total of Rs. 14,112 million has been earmarked for the project, which is scheduled for completion and public use by 2024.
Wakkumbura also mentioned that the implementation of the recommendations in the report of the Delimitation Committee has been put on hold to avoid impacting the reconciliation process and creating further disarray among local government bodies due to the presentation of facts in the document.
