Lakshman Gunasekera
If the “primary objective” was to have an alternative international scale runway and complementary aircraft facilities, either A’pura or Trinco or Jaffna or even Batti would have been far cheaper safety and passenger-serving options rather than building anew an abandoned British colonial makeshift runway which has absolutely no demographic-commercial hinterland but only the birds to disturb. All four airports mentioned above have been constantly in use (for military and/or civilian needs) ever since they were built unlike the “Mattala”.
When one sees tourism – domestic, foreign and Diaspora – booming today, the hotel and resort industry would have hugely benefitted if either Trinco or Jaffna had been upgraded. Thus, both the emergency landing option as well as other even more vital infrastructure needs (listed above) would have been met. In fact the E 01 expressway should have been the Cmb-Kandy road, serving a substantial part of the A6 to Trinco rather than its current route Cmb-Rajapaksa Dacha (almost a Dachau today expensively built to complement Mattala and also the built to complement Mattala and also the other utterly wasteful follies: namely, that international conference hall in Hambantota and the cricket stadium. A parallel BMICH would be far better used today if it had been in A’pura or Jaffna, no?
An equally wasteful and ecologically destructive monstrosity is the Hambantota “port”. WHY are all these immense projects all clustered around or in Hambantota, one of the least populated districts of the country? There is only one, most shameful reason – Rajapaksa aggrandisement. I forgot to mention the Hambantota Pradeshiya Sabha complex which is easily twice the building space of any municipal council of the country, leave aside the many far smaller Urban Council complexes all of which serve 4-5 times the population and economy! The Rajapaksas are lucky to get away with a happy retirement (and sycophant’s apologetics) instead of criminal prosecution for colossal mal-governance.
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NOTE: This essay is clearly a response to the article and readers are encouraged to look over that item and the comments it attracted.
