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The government appointed a six-member probe team to investigate the reasons for such power outages and it is revealed that, according to news reports, little or no maintenance work had been carried out. The IESL had given mandate to its Power sector committee for the formulation of a set of recommendations to avoid such situations in the future with the knowledge and experience of our own engineers who are knowledgeable in the field and that gives opportunity to our members to come forward and put forward their thoughts to action.
Further, that gives the very important message on the importance of maintenance of our infrastructures after construction. It is valid for all sectors; irrigation, roads, buildings, water supply and all other sectors of engineering and it is a known fact that there is shortage of attention to periodical maintenance of infrastructures. The allocation of necessary funds for periodical maintenance is of vital importance and it is our duty to convince higher authorities the importance of maintenance of public properties as well as educate the general public that without public support engineers alone are not able to carry out sustainable maintenance programs. Such sustainable maintenance program would cut down the massive cost of rehabilitation works and eliminate the heavy criticism by public on engineer’s works.
The IESL and our professionals worked hard with other professionals under the United Professionals Movement on government proposed ETCA and were able to convince the them, government and planning authorities, of the future repercussions of unplanned bilateral agreements on professional works performed by our own professionals. Now our own professional Engineers and professional of other disciplines are part of the planning process. It is the best opportunity for our engineers to formulate good action plans to utilize our talents and give the leadership in the development process in a sustainable manner.
Another milestone of IESL is that the government has decided to implement the Railway Electrification and Modernization Project (REMP) with the assistance of Asian Development Bank (ADB). Late great Engineer Eng. D.J.Wimalasurendra proposed railway electrification with his hydropower development project in 1918 and in 2008 the IESL appointed task force submitted a very comprehensive report with experts of Sri Lanka Railway(SLR) and the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB). The dream has come to realization and now it is our duty as IESL members to join together and work hard to compelete this endeavor for people’s benefit and economic development by transport sector as well.
All these events indicate to us that synergy of engineers is the best way to achieve our lost place in the society. Therefore, on behalf of the IESL Council I urge all of you to come forward with different development proposals and the council is always with the members to promote your valuable proposals and to convince the government the value of the Engineers.
Thank you.
Eng. Wimalasena Gamage
President of IESL
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