Southern Expressway Hits a Road Block.
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7 August 2008
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A senior government official has confirmed that the southern expressway has face yet another obstacle. The expressway having had many setbacks and delays in completion date now lacks funding to be completed by the expected date of 2010.
The expressway deigned to connect the southern region of Matara with the capital Colombo significantly cutting down travel time costs several hundred millions of dollars.
According to R W R Premasiri, the General Manager of the Road Development Authority about 35% of the expressway has now been completed but more funding to the tune of 130 to 150 million US dollars would be needed to finish the project.
The manila biased Asian Development Bank (ADB) has nearly doubled its commitment to funding the expressway in March from US$90 million in 1990 to US$140 million for the project. The Nordic Development fund, The Japan Bank for International Corporation and the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency are all contributing for this project.
This 178 kilometre expressway when completed would have a combination of 2 and 4 lanes of traffic and is expected to lower food prices especially in Colombo as a significant amount of food and other basic items are transported painstakingly slow along the current roads that are jam packed and pot holed while giving new blood to the markets of the rural southern regions.
Sri Lanka in recent years has started to rebuild its infrastructure that has been neglected for the past 20 years mainly due to the war in the North.
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