Govt. packaging Megapolis investments: official

The Sri Lankan government is currently packaging the various developments required in the Megapolis Project into investment opportunities, Mawilmada said.

“We will be packaging these projects into investment opportunities over the next few months,” he said.

However, he noted that there needs to be new legislation and policy reforms in this regard and support from various stakeholders.

“It’s not a walk in the park. This is an extremely challenging job. We cannot solve all the problems. We have to pick and choose and the transformation will take a long time, so I hope you can bear with us while we go on this journey and help us along the way,” Mawilmada said.

He also noted that the government may make mistakes in judgments during the implementation of the project but requested the public to push back in such instances.

“We’re always going to have judgment calls we have to make and I’m sure we’ll make our fair share of mistakes, but I do hope that given we have a lot more debate about urban development now than we had a couple of years ago, we will be kept in check, pushed back if we arrive at solutions that aren’t sustainable,” he said.

He also accepted that the project has not been communicated well to the public.

“We need to do a better job in that, but it’s only in the past one or two months that most of this has been crystallized to the point where we can go out to the public and say these are the stuff we’re doing. So we’re expecting over the coming months that we’ll have more media engagement and public outreach,” he said.

The Megapolis Project is expected to draw between US $ 30-40 billion in investments over 20 years and is expected to transform Colombo into a sprawling mega city with modern housing, transport and amenities as well as IT, industrial and plantation city hubs.