Minister of Energy, Kumara Jayakody said that the wind power project that was to be carried out by the Adani Company has not yet been cancelled.
The Minister was speaking during the first meeting of the Ministerial Consultative Committee on Energy of the First Session of the Tenth Parliament, which was held in Parliament recently under his chairmanship.
When Members of Parliament inquired about the project, Minister Jayakody said that as the pricing of the Adani Company’s power project was high, it had been referred to the Cabinet for reconsideration. At that time, the Indian Adani parent company had sent a letter to the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI) that they were withdrawing from this project. The Board of Investment had thereupon informed the Ministry.
Discussions regarding the wind power project were held with the representative institution of Adani in Sri Lanka, and that institution had been asked to reconsider this matter. Therefore, a response on this matter is expected within two weeks following the letter that was sent, the Minister said.
He said that only if a negative response is received within these two weeks it will be necessary to move towards an alternative. In the future, such projects will be carried out only through Government-to-Government (G2G) agreements and competitive procurement.
Attention was drawn regarding the steps taken to fill the existing vacancies in the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), including engineers. The officials said that during the economic crisis, many engineers had migrated overseas, creating vacancies and added that Cabinet approval had been obtained recently to fill these vacancies under three phases, and recruitment for the first batch is under way.
Discussions were held regarding unexpected power outages, with officials highlighting that even minor fluctuations in the system could destabilise it. They said that efforts are currently being made to maintain system stability by using other energy sources such as solar power.
