Melwa Group has rejected allegations that its new cement plant at Seeduwa is being built in an environmentally sensitive zone, and suggested that some of the criticism may be coming from commercial rivals rather than from people living nearby.
Melwa Group Head of Sales and Brand Malik Kannangara said the plant holds every approval required for a facility of its type, including from the Urban Development Authority, the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) and the Civil Aviation Authority, the Daily Mirror reported. Construction was proceeding under the conditions attached to those approvals, he said, and no agency had issued a notice or directive to halt or modify the project.
CEA officers visit the site several times a month and had inspected it as recently as the previous day, Kannangara said. The company has invited several of its critics to visit and see the technology for themselves.
He took a lighter view of the controversy itself. “As the person in charge of the brand, I must say they have given us some publicity even before we started. We should be very thankful to whoever started it,” he said, adding that the company intends to bring cement to market “as strong as iron.”
Who is objecting
Kannangara said those making the allegations were not residents of the area. “At times there may be a group with business expectations behind it. But since nobody has come forward directly, we cannot name any person or institution,” he said.
That characterisation sits against a protest in July, when around 1,000 Katunayake residents demonstrated against the plant. Protesters said a building plan approved by the CEA for 3,857 square metres in December 2020 had since grown to 12,925 square metres — more than three times the original footprint. They also raised concerns about cement dust near the airport runway and the plant’s proximity to three schools and the Negombo lagoon.
Asked about other industrial facilities already operating nearby, including a large concrete mixing operation, Kannangara acknowledged that several factories operate within a kilometre of the site but declined to name them. “What you said is true. I don’t wish to name them but it is true,” he said.
The company’s technical case
Melwa Cement Chief Operations Manager Chinthaka Thuduwewatta said the required buffer from the adjoining lagoon had been 10 metres until 2025, when it was raised to 100 metres. “Fortunately, we had not built anything within the 100 metres,” he said.
The plant involves no combustion, uses no water in its process and operates entirely within enclosed structures, he said, discharging nothing into the lagoon. Noise and dust controls are in place given the hotels in the vicinity, and an existing green belt of about 40 metres will be extended along the boundary.
The claims on both sides — the scope of the approvals and the expansion of the approved footprint — have not been independently verified by LankaNewz.
