The land used for a service area on the Southern Expressway was leased for 99 years at an annual rent of Rs. 10,000 under the previous Rajapaksa administration, Minister of Transport, Highways and Urban Development Bimal Rathnayake has said.
Rathnayake made the disclosure while responding to complaints about poor maintenance, cleanliness and high food prices at the facility, the Daily Mirror reported.
He said irregularities may have occurred in the original leasing transaction, given the terms.
What the rent amounts to
At Rs. 10,000 a year, the full 99-year term comes to Rs. 990,000 — less than a million rupees for a century of tenure on expressway frontage. The Daily Mirror does not name the leaseholder or give the date of the agreement.
Who actually runs it
The existing service area at Welipenna is operated by a company affiliated with the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, and is not directly managed by the Road Development Authority or the Ministry of Transport, Rathnayake said. The government has raised its concerns with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labour and the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, and is examining how the facility is managed.
That structure explains the complaint the minister was answering: the ministry that owns the road does not control the stop on it.
One stop on 312 kilometres
Rathnayake said only one service area is currently operating across the country’s 312-kilometre expressway network, with a second under development at Udukawa. The government intends to add service areas on the Central Expressway and other routes to improve facilities for motorists.
The pledge follows the RDA’s recent programme to build connecting roads to the expressway network — a build-out of access that arrives while the network still has a single place to stop.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror does not name the company holding the lease, give the year it was signed, or say whether the agreement can be revoked or renegotiated. It does not report any referral to an investigating agency, name any official responsible, or carry a response from the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation or from the previous administration. No timeline or cost is given for the Udukawa facility. No other verified newsroom had reported the minister’s remarks at the time of writing.
