The government has allocated Rs. 1.5 billion to identify and make safe dangerous locations on roads outside the national road network, Transport, Highways and Urban Development Minister Bimal Ratnayake said, the Daily Mirror reported on Saturday.
Rs. 60 million goes to each district. Local government institutions are responsible for identifying the dangerous locations and carrying out the safety improvements, and memorandums of understanding were signed with the chairmen and mayors of the relevant councils on 18 September.
The National Council on Road Safety has been assigned to provide technical guidance and monitor progress alongside the councils. Cabinet approved the programme in June, on a memorandum submitted on 20 May.
The allocation is flat, not weighted
Rs. 60 million across Sri Lanka’s 25 districts accounts for the full Rs. 1.5 billion exactly. That means every district receives the same sum regardless of road length, population, traffic volume or accident record — Colombo and Mullaitivu are funded identically.
The Daily Mirror does not report whether this was a deliberate equity decision or simply the arithmetic of dividing a round figure, and gives no accident data that would show where the dangerous locations actually concentrate.
A short clock
The MoUs “remain in effect until December 31, 2026, subject to their terms and conditions” — roughly three and a half months from signature. Within that window councils must identify hazardous locations, procure the work and complete physical improvements, with the north-east monsoon falling across the middle of it.
Nothing in the report says what happens to unspent district allocations after December, or whether the programme continues into 2027.
Two officials, one argument
Minister Ratnayake put the case for physical works directly:
“Road accidents cannot be reduced by enacting laws or educating the public alone. The physical unsafe conditions on the roads that cause accidents must also be changed.”
The same day, Inspector General of Police Priyantha Weerasuriya said the Ministry of Education had been urged to include road discipline and traffic rules within the school curriculum, NewsFirst reported. Many countries build road discipline into school education rather than confining it to the driving licence examination, he said, adding that discipline cannot be improved through fines alone and requires an attitudinal change beginning at a young age.
These are separate announcements, not one event. But they arrive at the same position from opposite ends: the minister says laws and awareness are not enough without engineering, and the police chief says enforcement is not enough without education. Between them, the two named remedies — physical works and curriculum change — are the two that neither official controls alone.
Not reported
Neither outlet gives Sri Lanka’s current road death or injury figures, or any target the programme is meant to hit. The Daily Mirror does not say how a “dangerous location” is defined, who validates a council’s list, what counts as a qualifying improvement, or what happens where a hazardous stretch sits on a national road and so falls outside the scheme entirely.
It does not report how many local government institutions signed, whether any declined, or what oversight applies to the spending. The National Council on Road Safety’s composition and its power to reject a council’s proposal are not described.
NewsFirst does not say whether the Ministry of Education has responded to the IGP, at what grades the subject would be taught, or whether any timetable exists.
