Railway Unions Cry Foul

By Nirmala Kannangara

According to Vithanage, these amounts include the price of sleepers, railway tracks and metal pieces.

“The Indian companies brought down the sleepers, the iron tracks and the metal pieces from India. One Indian sleeper costs Sri Lankan Rs.8,000 but we would have supplied a quality sleeper at Rs.4,500. The Indian sleepers are substandard and after the northern railway line was opened on October 13, up to now more than 10,000 sleepers have broken – which shows their quality. The sleepers made by the Sri Lanka Engineering Corporation have a 50-year guarantee period,” Vithanage said.

Accusing the Railway Department of offering the contract to the Indians claiming they have expertise, Vithanage said, it was the retired Sri Lankan Railway Engineers and Foremen that gave the expertise to the Indians for constructing the Palai –Jaffna railway track.

“If we were offered the contract, the Railway Department could have saved Rs.14,000 million. We would have used our own quality sleepers, metal pieces and the quality British iron for the track imported from British Iron Works, United Kingdom. We would have employed our own expertise for a lesser price and most importantly our prices included the cost of constructing railway stations as well,” Vithanage added.

According to Vithanage, although the Indians charged a staggering sum of Rs.340 million for one km, they have failed to construct the railway pavilion. “There are 12 railway stations from Palai to Jaffna and other than the three main railway stations at Jaffna, Chavakachcheri and Kodikamam, none of the other nine stations have been constructed. We were told how the commuters had to wait in heavy rains during the past rainy days, as there was no building or even a tent for them to stay under. Even there are no water connections to any of these nine railway stations and the commuters are facing difficulty when they want to use the wash rooms,” Vithanage alleged. According to Vithanage, after the 2004 tsunami, Indian Rites Company wanted Rs.1000 million to construct the 88km southern railway tract which they promised to complete in one year, but the SLR employees were able to complete the southern railway track within 57 days. “Although the Indians wanted Rs.1000 million for the construction we were able to construct the railway line for Rs. 450 million within 57 days. If the SLR could rely on its own employees to construct the southern railway line at a cheaper rate, why couldn’t they offer us the northern railway work, too” Vithanage queried.

Neither Transport Minister Kumara Welgama nor General Manager Railways Mr. Amaratunge was available for a comment