Turning A Blind Eye To Reason

Our problem goes back to about 1991 when a former President of Sri Lanka flew over and wanted a straight-line road joining Katunayake and Ratmalana airports.
So, the officials came up with the Baseline highway project of which a major portion was constructed with Japanese aid up to Kirulapona. However, the straight – line concept was deviated from, where certain top politico’s land was concerned and a ‘bend’ was made.
We, who protested vehemently as an Association of affected persons – Baseline Road from the inception of the proposal was  granted some relief to those affected persons on the part from Rathmalana upto Colombo – Horana main Road by the President by cancelling this part in April 2009(for reasons still unknown to us). Since then, we, living in the portion left – over from the original proposal ie. From Colombo – Horana main Road up to Kirulapona were left high and dry as the majority of people were relieved and were not interested  anymore  about the 80 odd householders left behind, so much so that the leadership (who were in the cancelled portion) quickly summoned the committee and appointed me as the Chairman of the sub – committee for those 80 odd affected balance residents, and washed their hands off.
Since then, I have been corresponding with the R.D.A. on numerous occasions, but have not received any replies. I have even met the former Gen. Manager R.D.A. in the presence of the former Project Manager Baseline III along with some  of my present committee, but they were not prepared to consider the alternative we proposed and were persistently maintaining that it was not ‘feasible’, without giving any reasons and since the Japanese aid was not availableany more, they were awaiting the next budget to receive and allocation of Rs. 400 mn. (estimated about 2 years ago) to start. About 2 years have lapsed since this meeting.
I have also on several occasions, appealed to the President attaching lists of affected residents with their signatures explaining our grievance. All these letters were replied by the Staff Assistants attached to the Presidential Secretariat in a stereo – type manner mentioning they have referred the matter to the department  concerned.
These letters, I feel never reached the eyes of the President. Meantime, the Divisional Secretariat, Colombo South recently issued a letter to all affected residents that the original order for acquisition has been canceled relieving those concerned  residents. Subsequently, on my inquiry the Divisional Secretariat informed me verbally that if the R.D.A. requests, at any time  they can re-introduce the acquisition. However the original Street – line marked for the high way still remains to date.
Finally, let me conclude ; the original purpose of connecting Rathmalana to Katunayaka I feel s abandoned and if the proposed Baseline III balance (a 1.2 Km stretch) is going to be done: as the R.D.A insists, we see no valid reason to go ahead, throwing about 80 families in to immense grief and financial loss as these are prime residential lands on which people have invested huge sums of money. I do wish you would publish prominently  these facts in whichever manner you think fit, as we all are now between “the Devil and the deep blue sea”.
M. Gooneratne,
Chairman,
Association of affected persons Baseline III
P.S.