News

CEB engineers, blue eyed boys of govt.- Ministry official

Published

4 years ago

2022/07/30

By Ifham Nizam

Many professionals including medical specialists were spending days and nights in fuel queues, but the engineers of the Ceylon Electricity Board had no such problem as the government giving priority to supplying fuel for power generation, a senior Power and Energy Ministry official said.

Despite everyone else undergoing untold hardships trying to find fuel, CEB engineers have been happily tapping into the large diesel reserves at the Kelanitissa power plant, The Island reliably learns.The official said: “Ironically, CEB has no rupees to pay CPC even when the Treasury scrapes the barrel to find the dollars to pay for fuel imports. Therefore, CEB is forced to get short-term loans from commercial banks at exorbitant interest rates, generally

above 30%, to pay for its fuel and monthly salaries and generous allowances of its employees.”

Several CEB employees contacted by The Island including veteran trade unionist Ranjan Jayalal were of the opinion that it is a crime for the CEB to use the diesel supplied by the government for power generation, often depriving other critical needs such as public transport, school vans, transport of daily food items like fish and vegetables and agricultural needs, to maintain the lifestyle of a set of privileged state employees.

According to these CEB employees, long lines of CEB vehicles used by engineers have become a common sight at the Kelanitissa power station. These vehicles often carry barrels and other containers to take additional diesel supplies.These employees complain that although diesel is issued from the Kelanitissa storage under the guise of supplying the essential needs of maintenance and breakdown vehicles, only a small fraction of that fuel is allocated to CEB’s field vehicles.

The engineers in the meantime have an almost unrestricted supply of diesel for their official and private travel (sometimes including daily travel of their spouses), despite the people agonising in long fuel queues all over the country.In fact, CEB has been advising its customers that the time taken to attend to breakdown complaints will take longer because its maintenance vehicles cannot get sufficient fuel.

CEB engineers are allowed home travel and an additional private mileage ranging from 600-900 kilometers per month. Although the daily travel between home and office is limited to 20km each way, some engineers travel to Colombo daily from places like Wennappuwa, Negombo, Panadura, and even more distant places such as Ratnapura. Apparently, the fuel shortage has not deterred these engineers from using the home travel as well as the additional private mileage allowance.

It is understood that when the CEB General Manager recently announced that the private mileage allowance of engineers would be reduced by 50%, engineers protested vehemently against that decision. Many CEB employees question why this decision had angered the engineers so much when there is no fuel even to manage CEB’s day-to-day maintenance work in most areas.

It is also learnt that some CEB engineers who had been allocated petrol vehicles had quickly switched to diesel ones because of the ready availability of the fuel from CEB’s Kelanitissa storage facility.

Its employees complain that even the engineers attached to project work in the Project Division continue to clock the same mileage as before, although the project work has come to a standstill because of the foreign exchange shortage and the resulting shortage of essential materials like steel, cement as well as CEB’s inability to open LCs for essential imports of new equipment.

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Landslide Early Warnings issued to the districts of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya extended

Published

11 hours ago

2026/02/14

Priyan

The landslide early warnings issued to the Districts of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya by the Landslide Early Warning Center of the National Building Research Organisation have been extended till 0600 hrs on 15th February 2026.

Accordingly,
The Level II [AMBER] warnings issued to the Divisional Secretaries Divisions and surrounding areas of Walapane and Nildandahinna in the Nuwar Eliya district and the
Level I [YELLOW] warning issued to the Divisional Secretaries Divisions and surrounding areas of Pathadumbara in the Kandy district have been extended.

Latest News

Advisory for Severe Lightning issued to the Western, Sabaragamuwa and Southern provinces and Badulla and Nuwara-Eliya districts

Published

12 hours ago

2026/02/14

Priyan

Advisory for Severe Lightning Issued by the Natural Hazards Early Warning Centre at 11.30 a.m. 14 February 2026 valid for the period until 11.30 p.m. 14 February 2026

Thundershowers accompanied with severe lightning are likely to occur at some places in the Western, Sabaragamuwa and Southern provinces and in Badulla and Nuwara-Eliya districts after 1.00 p.m. There may be temporary localized strong winds during thundershowers.

The General public is kindly requested to take adequate precautions to minimize damages caused by lightning activity.

ACTION REQUIRED:

The Department of Meteorology advises that people should:
 Seek shelter, preferably indoors and never under trees.
 Avoid open areas such as paddy fields, tea plantations and open water bodies during thunderstorms.
 Avoid using wired telephones and connected electric appliances during thunderstorms.
 Avoid using open vehicles, such as bicycles, tractors and boats etc.
 Beware of fallen trees and power lines.
 For emergency assistance contact the local disaster management authorities.

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Teacher recruitment examinations will be conducted in accordance with the relevant court decisions – PM

Published

21 hours ago

2026/02/14

Priyan

Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya stated that the forthcoming two teacher recruitment examinations will be conducted in accordance with the relevant court decisions pertaining to the ongoing legal proceedings and further noted that, taking into consideration the requests received, steps have been taken to make a request to Court’s approval to revise the conditions of the effective date of degree completion.

The Prime Minister made these remarks while addressing a meeting held at Monaragala Royal College to brief education authorities of the Monaragala District on the new education reforms.

Under the new education reforms, Smart Boards will be provided to 132 schools in the Monaragala District as part of the program to equip secondary schools with modern technology. As a symbolic step under this initiative, Smart Boards were presented to 10 secondary schools under the Prime Minister’s patronage. This program is being implemented with the intervention of the Digital Task Force operating under the Prime Minister’s Office. It was also emphasized that a new digital policy, formulated with special attention to child protection, will be introduced in April.

As part of her visit to the Monaragala District on the 13 th of February, the Prime Minister observed the implementation of the new learning methodologies introduced for Grade One under the new education reforms. She visited Kumbukkana Sri Shanmugam Tamil Maha Vidyalaya and Maduruketiya Maha Vidyalaya in Monaragala to observe the educational activities of Grade One students.

Considering the increase of student numbers and the development of infrastructure facilities, the Prime Minister also approved a proposal submitted by the School Development Society to rename Maduruketiya Maha Vidyalaya as Monaragala Dharmaraja Maha Vidyalaya.

Teachers briefed the Prime Minister that the new education system, supported by revised workbooks and activity-based learning methods, has proven to be effective, with students participating enthusiastically.

Addressing education officials further at the meeting held at Monaragala Royal College, the Prime Minister stated:

“Although this will not provide a complete solution to the existing teacher vacancies, these examinations can offer considerable relief. According to the Court’s previous determination, the effective date of degree completion had been set as 30.06.2025. However, considering numerous requests and following the cabinet approval we have sought Court’s consent to revise this date. We will act in accordance with the decision granted.

Funds allocated for school infrastructure must be utilized transparently and in line with proper planning, and progress must be reported accordingly. We cannot move forward by dividing ourselves along national, provincial, rural, or urban lines. As education authorities, you must make swift and accurate decisions based on correct data.

Further, discussions are already underway within the Piriven Committee of the Ministry of Education to develop Piriven education and to address the issues faced by Piriven teachers.”

The event was attended by the members of the Maha Sangha, Uva Province Governor Attorney-at-Law Kapila Jayasekara, Deputy Minister of Trade and Commerce R.M. Jayawardhana, Member of Parliament Ajith Agalakada, Uva Provincial Education Secretary Nihal Gunarathne, and several officials from the education sector.