• People have an important role and responsibility in maintaining public property
• The project is funded by the World Bank and is handled by the UDA

While the government has a major role in protecting and maintaining public property, in essence it is the public that ultimately utilise and benefit from such facilities. Therefore people have an important role and responsibility in maintaining public property. After all, any damage done to public property should be ultimately borne by society itself, and it is our own money that gets wasted if such resources are vandalised.   

Vandalism is, distorting or damaging private or public property partially or fully. In this backdrop Daily Mirror discovered an act of vandalism against an iron fence in the linear park along the Beira Lake bay at Baladaksha Mawatha in Colombo. A linear park is a park usually found in an urban or suburban area, and is substantially longer than it is wide.   
The linear park along Baladaksha Mawatha is part of the Beira Lake Intervention Area Development Plan implemented in 2017. The project covers an area of 312.45 hectares, of which 55.26 hectares comprises the water body of the Beira Lake and the canals connected to it. The proposed zoning plan was implemented in 2017, and is still continuing. The linear park was completed and opened to the public in 2019. The park has an iron fence along the Beira Lake canal bay which is surrounded by many construction work sites with high rise buildings. The project is funded by the World Bank (WB) and is handled by the Urban Development Authority (UDA).   

A construction worker in the area claimed the damage done to the iron fence could have been by a group of youngsters who are suspected to be area residents. He said there were no more clues to reveal the identities of the individuals who might have engaged in the vandalism of the fence. The iron rods that connect the fence had also been eroded due to exposure to sun and rain.   

Speaking to Daily Mirror, a Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) official who did not want to reveal his name said any damage done to public property was a police matter. “If any vandalism occurs, it is the police specific to the area that should handle it under civil law,” he said, adding the vandalised property belonged to the UDA. “The CMC is only responsible for properties belonging to us. What the CMC does is provide the police with an estimation of the cost of the damage done to the public property belonging to the CMC. This is done to recover the cost from the individuals involved in such vandalism,” he said. The official noted that until the cost incurred was settled, those who committed the offence would not be released.   
When Daily Mirror contacted the Slave Island Police, an officer said they had not received any complaints regarding the damage done to the iron fences on Baladaksha Mawatha. He also said the property belonged to the UDA which had not complained about the matter.   

When contacted by Daily Mirror an official from the UDA who did not want to reveal his name said they also had not received any complaints about the fences being damaged. “So far we have not received any complaints about the damage done to those fences along the Beira Lake at Baladaksha Mawatha,” he said. However he told us the UDA would consider the matter seriously and would try to find out the individuals responsible for such acts of vandalism. He said the UDA would inspect the area and take necessary action with regard to initiating legal procedures. “If a property belonging to the UDA is vandalised, first an estimation of damage is created as per the internal valuation of the UDA,” the official explained. He added, once an incident of vandalism occurred, it would be filed as a legal matter with the corresponding area police station. Referring to renovations, he said according to practical circumstances, renovations were carried out with respect to the particular area. 

Commenting on the project he said, “The overall project was started in 2012 and there were a lot of sub-components attached to it.” He noted that development contracts were called for the area covering Baladaksha Mawatha behind One Galle Face after 2012 and it was opened to the public in 2019. 

Pix by  Damith Wickramasinghe