Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2018-03-06

Installation of the Railway Level Crossing Protection Systems and formation of Project Management Units to expedite the rehabilitation of the Northern Railway Line

- The length of the Sri Lanka Railway Network is 1,450 km and there are all together 1,337 railway cross roads. Out of the above, 520 have already been protected, pursuant to the provisions set apart from the Budget 2018 and measures are being taken to install Railway Level Crossing Protection Systems for another 400 railway cross roads. Further, a proposal has been made to implement a project to construct railway cross roads so as to cover all the remaining railway cross roads under the financial assistance of the Government of Hungary.

Further, action has been initiated to rehabilitate the railway track from Maho Junction to Omanthai, and to construct a double track and installation of signaling system from Polgahawela to Kurunegala under the financial assistance of India with the objective of operating trains at 120 km per hour in the Northern railway line so as to reduce the time taken to reach from Jaffna to Colombo by 40 minutes. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Nimal Siripala de Silva, the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, for the establishment of Project Management Units to implement the projects expeditiously and to implement the installation of Level Crossing Protection Systems under the financial assistance of the Hungarian Export and Import (EXIM) Bank, was approved by the Cabinet.