Mahinda Gunasekera

Minister of Environment, Sri Lanka
State Minister of The Envkironment, Sri Lanka
Minister of Power and Energy, Sri Lanka

Your Excelleny, The President of Sri Lanka, State Minister of the Environment and Minister of Power and Energy,

I wish to send to you a plea made by Prof. Rohan Pethiyagoda about the lack of an environment assessment in the authorization of the Wind Power generation project in the Mannar region where we have a wealth of migrating birds arriving to nest and avoid the colder winds of the winter in the northern regions. A large number of these birds including protected birds are severely endangered by the transmission lines and the grave risk faced by these birds in flying past these tall wind turbines being erected by the Adani Group of India.

Furthermore, Prof. Rohan Pethiyagoda has drawn attention to the premium Sri Lanka swill be paying for the power that would be produced by the Adani Group for which Sri Lanka will be required to pay nearly five times the cost of production of the energy by 52 turbines in US Funds for the next 25 years when Sri Lanka is faced with a foreign currency crisis.

No proper environmental assessment has been carried out, and it is a unwise step taken which will tie future generation to pay the billions of US Dollars for about 6 percent of our energy needs.

Please look into this matter urgently and take immediate steps to restore normal procedural means and not be carried over to please any party as the terms of the contract are adverse to Sri Lanka’s interests.

Yours sincerely,

Mahinda Gunasekera