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Sri Lanka Construction
Total expenditure for construction was estimated at 7.7
percent of GDP in 1986. The sector was given a boost by the
ambitious public investment program of the government that came
to power in 1977. Between 1977 and 1980, construction expanded at
an annual rate of 20 percent in real terms. It stagnated in the
1980s as the number of new projects dwindled and the early ones
were completed.
The largest construction project of the post-1977 period was
the Mahaweli irrigation program. Conceived in the 1960s as the
Mahaweli Ganga Program, the project originally was expected to
bring approximately 364,000 additional hectares of land under
irrigation and to provide an extra 540 megawatts of hydroelectric
power to the national grid. Completion of the program was to
require thirty years. Construction of the first two dams was
completed in 1977 and opened about 53,000 hectares of new land to
irrigation in a general area south of the old capital of
Anuradhapura in the dry zone. When the United National Party
swept into power in 1977, the project was given renewed impetus
and renamed the Accelerated Mahaweli Program. Construction work
was undertaken at five new sites between 1979 and 1982, with the
intent of increasing the hectares under irrigation and generating
an extra 450 megawatts of hydroelectric power for the national
grid. By the end of 1987, new dams and reservoirs had been
completed at Kotmale, Randenigala, Maduru Oya, and Victoria. The
operational power stations at Randenigala and Victoria together
generated 330 megawatts of power, with an additional 147
megawatts expected when the Kotmale station came on line. All
construction related to the Accelerated Mahaweli Program was
scheduled for completion by 1989. The total cost of the entire
project was estimated at US$1.4 to 2 billion.
The Urban Development Authority was established in 1978 to
promote integrated planning and development of important urban
locations. Its responsibilities have included the new
parliamentary buildings and the reconstruction of St. John's fish
market in Colombo. Total expenditure of the Urban Development
Authority was Rs529 million in 1986, well under its annual budget
in the early 1980s. The Million Houses Program was established in
1984 to coordinate both public and private housing construction.
In early 1988 the government's policy was to subsidize private
housing rather than undertake extensive public housing programs.
Data as of October 1988
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