Last-ditch effort to make Colombo globally competitive

By Chandeepa Wettasinghe
The Western Megapolis plan is nearing its final consultative stages, and will be announced next February, an academic who is involved with the project said.
“We’re still making the plan at the moment. The Cabinet approved it in April, and we started consultations in May and we will continue until the end of this year. We will have to launch the plan by February next year,” University of Moratuwa Department of Town & Country Planning Professor P. K. S. Mahanama said.

Urban Development Authority Director General Nayana Mawilmada said that task forces have been set up to look into each matter such as waste disposal, land use, housing, transport, funding from the private sector for infrastructure and operations, etc.

Prof. Mahanama noted that the plan has already been gazetted—possibly referring to the Megapolis Plan of the 2002 United National Party government, which included the Port City.

“It is a good plan and the government has good policies,” he added, speaking at the LBR/LBO Infrastructure Summit 2015.

Last month, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe called on Singapore’s CESMA International Pte Ltd, which created the Megapolis plan in 2002, to revise the plan. 

He had in the past said that the project would take decades and cost up to US$ 300 billion, which will be financed through bond issues.

However, the public and wider stakeholders are unable to comprehensively engage in the development of the plan, as, while the project website has a contact form, its ‘plans’ and ‘forum’ sections say ‘under construction and sorry for any inconvenience’.

TWCorp Founder Chairman/CEO and former Board of Investments Chief Thilan Wijesinghe noted that when creating such a mega city, some people would inevitably be left out, and that the government must leave out their egos when developing and implementing the project.

“There seems to have been a lot of plans but we seem to have failed and destroyed the city,” he added. University of Moratuwa Transport and Logistics Management Department Senior Lecturer Professor Amal Kumarage agreed that Colombo has failed in its planning time, and that this will be the last chance for Colombo to get its planning right if it wants to compete globally.

Prof. Mahanama guaranteed that Megapolis will be holistic, integrative, sustainable, equitable and inclusive for all citizens by promoting economic growth, social harmony, institutional governance, special configurations and environmental sustainability. “We will make it a smart city and a global city like London, where 6 out of 10 are not British. But for that we have to change our mentality and bring in policy changes,” he said.

However, Urban Transport Expert Guido Bruggemen said that Sri Lanka must be careful when taking on such a big challenge, and replace ‘smart city’ with a ‘happy city’. “Will Colombo be Colombo or become a copy of another city? People in Colombo have to be themselves. You have lot of elements. Which city has a lake in the middle? What will happen to Pettah? Will it be gentrified? You must use all your unique elements,” he said.

Prof. Mahanama went on to say that the Megapolis will affect all citizens of the country, as all depend on the Western Region for growth.

“All 22 million people are connected to Colombo, and without Colombo no one can survive. In a way, it’s a trap,” he said.

He then showed the government’s physical infrastructure plan for 2030, which has Hambantota, Batticaloa and Jaffna becoming urban centres, with the Trincomalee area becoming a larger urban centre than the Western Province by including areas up to Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa.

However, Bruggemen said that planning indefinitely won’t help.

“You need an action plan now. You can’t plan for the next 5 years. You need to start now on a number of issues,” he said.

Prof. Mahanama assured that there are plans from the national policy level to action plan level.

He said that the Megapolis plan has opted for an urban sprawl concept consisting of numerous compact cities, a city port, an airport city, technological parks and the main business district, instead of the alternative concepts of focusing near the main roads, or on the main business district and a few suburban areas.