By 2025, all roads that belong to Local Government entities will be fully mapped and the Gazette notification will be published following road mapping, State Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Janaka Wakkumbura stated.
The State Minister emphasized that this scheme will be implemented after 36 years, and through this it will enable to identify roads belonging to the relevant Local Government institutions.
He expressed these views today (27) during a press conference themed ‘Collective Path to a Stable Country’ held at the Presidential Media Centre (PMC).
State Minister Janaka Wakkumbura further commented;
President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s vision is driving a significant transformation in the Local Government system, making services easily accessible to the public through online platforms. Currently, 69 Local Government institutions have successfully launched their services online, allowing citizens to conveniently access and utilize them.
We hope that this online system will help to reduce corruption and irregularities that take place in government institutions. Additionally, this will enable the public to promptly take care of a variety of their necessities, such as rates payments, company tax payments, obtaining permissions for housing plans, making reservations for crematoriums, stadiums, town halls, etc. Additionally, with the Ministry’s assistance, plans have been established to host a three-day training session for the secretaries and commissioners of the Local Government institutions in August.
Additionally, Local Government institutions are working towards creating additional self-generated revenue streams. It has come to notice that taxes, rental revenue, and license fees owed to these institutions are not being adequately collected. Consequently, plans have been established to identify the legal barriers that obstruct the proper receipt of revenue and to conduct research on the necessary solutions.
The necessary steps have already been completed to map all the roads of the country that are owned by Local Government institutions. In the first stage, 49,200 roads in the North-Western Province have been marked. Arrangements have been made to mark 21,000 kilometers of roads at the rate of Rs. 102 per kilometer.
For the areas without any Local Government -owned bridges, 160 new Bridge Kits will be constructed. 22 Bridge Kits are already under construction. This year alone, Rs. 5,000 million has been set aside for ‘The Regional Bridge Kits Project’. A total of Rs. 14,112 million has been allocated for the Regional Bridge Kits Project which is scheduled to be completed and handed over to the public within 2024.
Additionally, steps have been taken to make 10,355 temporary, casual, substitute and contract basis employees in Local Government institutions permanent, on the instructions of President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
