people.com.cn,  Thu Sep 29 04:42:58 EDT 2005
Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga has pledged to extend government support to both public and private bus operators to upgrade their services and help them run as profit making ventures.

Addressing the official ceremony of establishing the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB), Kumaratunga said the government was ready to uplift the private bus sector too in the same manner it was improving the public transport services, reported the Daily News.

"We have formulated plans to run both bus services as profit making services and provide a better service to the public," she said.

Kumaratunga as the Minister in charge of Transport, symbolically handed over the keys of the new buses imported from Japan to the managers of the Nittambuwa, Kadawatha and Katubedda depots which have been selected to run pilot projects in the process of formation of the SLTB.

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- The Academic

In Sri Lanka over and over again it shows that government led business is always a failure.
In last 12 years of CBK governance we had seen either government business become white elephants or privatised being unable to run it profitably.
Unless some drastic measures done to run SLTB as an independant, profit making establishment the days of new SLTB is going numbered.

>In last 12 years of CBK governance we had seen either government business become white elephants or privatised being unable to run it profitably.

The last year SLTB (that time CTB) made profit was 1976. After that it was used as a place for giving jobs and buses were asold cheaply to friends. Hope the history does not repeat.


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Some are wise, others are otherwise!

At least one effort to improve the transportation in the country is a success. I just read a report in the Features section that said all 225 MP's will receive new duty-free cars (again).

As for the SLTB, It is not necessary that a public transport system operate at a profit. Of course, it is desirable but by virtue of the fact that it is a state-owned enterprise and more importantly, a public service, the need for generating a profit is not strictly required.

Many municipal transportation systems worldwide do run at a loss but they continue to be funded. Making them public is not always the answer. British Rail is a good case-study of this.

Of course, this assumes there are honest people running the show to begin with.

The president has disclosed that "a massive oil deposit has been detected along the Puttalam to Hambantota coastal belt" before her remarks on the transport services - according to today's Daily News. I wonder why this has been omitted in above news item.

The state transport services will never improve if the same set of persons are allowed to run it even under a different name. All unnecessary staff should be got rid of, those over 55 years retired, professionally qualified managers/accountants should be appointed to the board and given a free hand without political interfearence. All those who have used  intimidation and thuggery for whatever reason should be got rid of. Discipline, punctuality, integrity and optimum work output should be enforced. Else, it will continue to be a liability.

CTB should be a company mostly owned by the employees. Then if it loses money employees will have to cover the loss. Other wise, Once they start cheating and still begin strikes asking more money, it will be a failure. Previoulsy existed regionalized transport boards had lot of corruptions. Conductors when  they had a little space cheated money.