A Metro bus was trial-run from Kandy to Gampola on Thursday to identify a route for extending the service to the hill capital, in a survey led by Deputy Minister of Transport and Highways Dr. Prasanna Gunasena, the Daily Mirror reported.
The proposed route runs 19 kilometres from Kandy city through Senanayake Street, Dalada Street, Sirimavo Bandaranaike Mawatha, Mulgampola, Getambe Junction, Galaha Junction, Peradeniya, Angunawala, Gelioya, Weligalla and Kahatapitiya, ending at Gampola town and the Sri Lanka Transport Board depot. The road is being upgraded to take Metro bus operations and supporting infrastructure is being put in place.
A planning meeting chaired by the Deputy Minister preceded the survey at the Central Provincial Ministry of Roads auditorium, attended by the Police Traffic Division and state agencies. Those present included Central Province Chief Secretary Ajith Premasinghe, provincial highways ministry secretary Dilisha Rupani Piyadasa, Kandy Municipal Commissioner Indika Kumari Abesinghe, Central Province Road Passenger Transport Authority chairman Ajith Priyantha, and Lanka Metro Transit chief executive Engineer P.M. Piyathilaka.
The promise behind the survey
The Daily Mirror says Lanka Metro Transit plans to reach Kandy, Jaffna and Galle “in the coming years.” That is a looser horizon than the one ministers gave three months ago.
On 1 August, Transport Minister Bimal Ratnayake said the service would reach Kandy and Jaffna before the end of this year: “We hope to launch the Metro bus service in Jaffna and Kandy by the end of this year. Metro depots will also be established in both districts.” Days later the Cabinet approved 50 more low-floor buses and the Ministry said the first phase of expansion beyond the Colombo region would cover Kandy, Galle and Jaffna.
Ten and a half weeks of that year remain, and the project is at the stage of surveying a route and upgrading the road for it. No depot in Kandy is mentioned in Thursday’s filing, and no launch date is given.
The operating figures do line up. The Daily Mirror puts the current fleet at 122 Metro buses across seven routes in the Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara districts — matching the count this newsroom recorded when 122 buses were launched on seven routes at the end of September.
Not reported
The filing does not say when the Kandy service is expected to begin, how many buses it would use, what the fares or frequencies would be, or whether the Gampola route is the only one under consideration. It does not say who is funding the road upgrade, what it costs, or when it is due to finish, and it does not address the Minister’s year-end commitment or whether it still stands.
This account rests on a single verified newsroom. No report of the survey appeared on NewsFirst or Hiru News at the time of writing — both outlets’ live news rails were checked — and Ada Derana has been unreachable from this desk for twenty-eight consecutive days. Non-verified outlets carried the same survey on the same day; under this newsroom’s sourcing rules they are not cited here, and a launch year reported by one of them is not repeated for want of a verified confirmation.
Sources: Daily Mirror.
