Chinese company facilitates roads to prosperity

COLOMBO－There are some very noisy roadworks outside Sathishkumara Nargeshwaran's home. Noisy, smelly trucks are tearing up what little road surface there is. In many places this kind of disruption would bring complaints and dismay, but in this village in Sri Lanka's Northern Province, people are delighted.

"Rebuilding this road will help the village a lot. If more of our roads get the same treatment, we'll all be much better off," says Nargeshwaran.

For historical reasons, northern Sri Lanka is less developed than the rest of the country. Most of the villages in the area are connected by potholed roads. When it rains, no one goes anywhere.

In March 2020, China State Construction Engineering Corp began to widen and pave the roads with asphalt in the region's Vavuniya area.

Liu Cunfeng, project manager of China State Construction Engineering Corp, says Vavuniya is an area with a scattered population of around 200,000 and the total construction length of the roads here is about 100 kilometers spread throughout different villages.

Previously, the winding country roads of Vavuniya were narrow, and some were the only routes in and out of towns and villages. Therefore, ensuring the normal passage of villagers and continuing the construction progress at the same time has become an issue that the Chinese enterprise needs to consider in a balanced manner.

"We have ensured that the project has been supported by the surrounding villagers since the start of construction," says Liu.

When the construction staff apologized for the inconvenience caused by the construction work to his home, Nargeshwaran said: "The current inconvenience is temporary, and we have been looking forward to the improvement of road conditions."

Kumar, who owns a grocery store, has already benefited from the rural road transformation. "After the road in front of my house was rebuilt, more customers came to my store than before."

At the end of school hours, the newly paved road next to Maraharampalai Vinayakar Viththiyalayam School is bustling with parents coming to pick up their children.

Watching the students happily running and cycling outside the school, principal Manchuria Devi Theruvarural Nesan says the road has brought great convenience for the 250 students and their parents.

The rural road reconstruction project not only improved local residents' travel conditions, but also created job opportunities. In order to promote women's employment, the project has set aside 30 percent of the positions for local females.

Thirty-nine-year-old Sandaramogan Shashikala, a female road cleaner, found it very difficult to raise her children with limited financial resources. However, after she started working for the Chinese company's project, her family's economic situation has improved and her home now has a new bathroom and electricity.

Another female worker Subramaniyam Parameshwari says it is generally difficult for women to find jobs in this area, but now she can earn enough to support herself and her family.

Xinhua