In a fresh bid to strengthen the national power-grid with another 400 MWs, 159 licences have already been issued to prospective corporate stakeholders to carry on with renewable energy power generation, and interested parties are bound to complete their projects within a set timeframe of two years, a Ministry of Power and Energy press release said.

Under the Rural Electrification Scheme, the Power and Energy Ministry has supplied electricity to Mimaduma electorate where around 1000 families live. The people in this electorate have lived 30 years without electricity facilities, the Power and Energy Ministry said.

The electrification along the Omanthai Mankulam road had been completed at a cost of ten million rupees, a Power and Energy Ministry official said.

According to the official all the three zones of the Menik Farm had been provided with electricity at cost of Rs. Six million. Further the Ceylon Electricity Board has spent over Rs. five million to provide Padaviya hospital with electricity.

The residents of Erathna area staged a protest in front of a worksite of the proposed private hydro power plant with a capacity of 6.5 kilowatts on the banks of the Kuruganga at Lassakanda.

The CEB has restored electricity supply along the Mankulam road covering a distance of 35 km from Omana to Mankulam under the Power and Energy Ministry

Sri Lanka government has taken measures to provide power supply to every village in the North under a program called 'Uthuru Wasanthaya' (Northern Spring).

Issuing a press release Power and Energy Ministry said they would first reconstruct all the transformers, power cable systems, and electricity sub-stations destroyed by the LTTE.

As fund constraint stalls a vital donor-funded $189-million project to install three gas pipelines and compressors necessary to increase the country's gas supply, the energy ministry on Tuesday decided to reduce the number of pipelines and compressors down to two.

tsunami relief: Sri Lankan authorities destroyed large stocks of rice, pulses, vegetable oil and canned fish and other food items, donated as tsunami relief, on December 29. The food stocks, donated by the UN World Food Programme, were stored in warehouses in Boossa from December 2004 and were no longer suitable for human consumption. A special investigation had been initiated by Galle district

oil hedging hurt: On November 28, Sri Lanka

Petroleum and Petroleum Resources Minister A.H.M. Fowzie says that the government is charging a levy of Rs. 62 per litre of petrol at the moment.
Responding to a question raised by the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) parliamentarian Anura Kumara Dissanayake at the parliament this morning the Minister said the government has reduced this levy by Rs. 29 in the last fuel price revision.