Janaka Rathnayake, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, says that if the coal ships cannot be brought in as scheduled within the specified period, there may be an increase in the power cut time from January.
Speaking to the media, he said that he was informed to produce electricity by using only 2 of the 3 generators in the power plant in Norochcholai and that they will have to continue managing it until the next ship arrives.
“Next year, we are at risk of losing the required amount of coal reserves. Because of that risk, there is a basis for saying that if we run out of coal, we will go to a long-term electricity cut again as we had in January of this year.”
The chairman who presented the facts regarding the coal ships also said:
“We have received 5 coal ships since August until today. Another one is coming in a couple of weeks. That is why we recommended that the Ceylon Electricity Board should not use all 3 power plants in Norochcholai but use only two and continue this management until the next ship arrives. Now the problem is with the remaining 32 ships.. We need 38 ships a year. So far 6 have arrived. If we are bringing the remaining 30 or 31, the problem we have is that we can only bring them from January to the 15th of April. If we can bring a ship once every 5 days, we cannot bring more than 20 ships. Because our time is limited to 4 months.
That is not the problem of the citizens of Sri Lanka. You people are in the top management seats & are duty bound to provide the service to the nation. If you can’t perform to expected standards then you aren’t fit for the job & must resign.