Mass rapid electric rail transit system coming soon

By Rohan Abeywardena

A solution to the maddening rush hour traffic gridlock in Colombo is now a few years away with the Government expected to finalise, within 90 days, all aspects of the construction of an electric Mass Rapid Transit System by an Indian investor.

Adiga S. Nagaraj, a Director of NEB Rapid Infrastructure Projects Pvt. Ltd. which has come forward to launch the billion dollar venture told The Sunday Times on Friday that he would be returning to Colombo tomorrow to begin finalising all details of the project with a high level committee to be appointed by the Sri Lankan Government next week.

NEB which has already undertaken the construction of the tallest building in Sri Lanka, a 60 storey tower complex at Battaramulla scheduled to be completed in 2011, is the foreign investment arm of the Indian infrastructure finance group SREI based in Hyderabad, Andra Pradesh. According to Mr. Nagaraj his group is also involved in infrastructure ventures in the Maldives and Libya.

"The agreement we have with the Government is to iron out all outstanding issues with this high level committee comprising Ministry Secretaries and other relevant high officials within 60 to 90 days," Mr. Nagaraj said in a telephone interview from India.
A letter of intent was awarded to the promoters of the Colombo Mass Rapid Transit Elevated Rail Project in March 2007 by Investment Promotion Minister Sarath Amunugama. Since then, according to the NEB Director, a Detailed Project Report, soil testing, traffic study and even costing had been carried out, spending several million US dollars.

According to BOI Chairman Dhammika Perera one of the key areas that is causing delays in moving forward with the project is in obtaining required land for some 20 odd stations required for the system covering Ratmalana, Pettah, Battaramulla via Kollupitiya, Gangarama, Maradana and Borella.

Mr. Nagaraj said his group is prepared to purchase the required State land at market prices, but the problem was that the required properties at various places were owned by numerous State entities like the Railway Department, the UDA, the LRC and the Central Transport Board.

"So instead of having to deal with each and every entity we will deal only with the High Committee," he said. The NEB has already contracted the highly reputed state owned Singapore Land Transport Consortium to build and manage the system expected to carry 12,000 passengers per hour in each direction.

According to published reports the consortium would be given a 50 year concession to run the MRT system on a Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis. The investors have also finalised two more phases to the project, with the second involving extending it to the BIA and the third to stretch it a few kilometres beyond Ratmalana and Battaramulla.

Mr. Nagaraj said thought had been given to a fourth phase to link up the whole network like the proposed circular road for Colombo.