Rajapaksa government gives Norochcholai to the Chinese

 Monday, 07 April 2014 

The Mahinda Rajapaksa government has officially permitted the Chinese to intervene in Sri Lanka’s power sector.

Although a Chinese construction company was assigned to construct the country’s first coal power plant in Norochcholai, it was operated by the Ceylon Electricity Board.

However, the Rajapaksa government has now taken steps to hand over all operations at the Norochcholai Coal Power Plant (NCPP) to China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) for three years.

CEB sources have been quoted in the local media as saying that the Cabinet approved its paper on handing over the power plant to the Chinese on March 27.

An engineer attached to the power plant, on condition of anonymity, has said that although the usual process is signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) after receiving Cabinet approval, in this instance the MOU was signed before Cabinet approval was received.