Sri Lanka It's Happening

June 27, 2004

According to the minister of finance the railyway system in sri lanka is a monster that gobbles up vital resources, woefully inefficient overstaffed and corrupt. That's probably why the previous government attempted to restructure it. No government has had the courage to privatize it, not a suprise in a land where people rarely stand up for what they believe in.

The UPFA (the party represented by the finance minister) strongly opposed these moves, as a result of it and a generous measure of strikes by the railway department employees the previous government postponed a restructuring program that was on the cards. Now the present government has scrapped it altogether.

To put things in perspective almost every single kilo meter of rail road in the country was laid over a hundred years ago. Some of the trains running on these tracks belong in musuems, in fact not so long ago Hitachi very generously offered a brand new engine in exchange of one of their old engines that ply these tracks.

Because the railway deparment is so grossly overstaffed no money can ever be allocated for upgrading the tracks or rolling stock. Derainglys are common. There were four last month. Trains never run on time the engines can never be brought up to full steam (there is a steam engine too) because the tracks cannot support such high speeds. It looks like the government want this sad state of affairs to continue.

Posted by raditha at June 27, 2004 1:48 AM