Appeal sent to lift SLA restriction on travel through A9 road

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 November 2009, 04:50 GMT]
The president of NGOs in Jaffna, C. V. K. Sivagnanam, sent an appeal Wednesday to government authorities to lift the restriction on travel to and from Jaffna through A9 road so that public could avoid spending exorbitant amount of money on air and sea travel, sources in Jaffna said. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna has ordered the people to travel by the same means of transport they had used to enter or leave Jaffna. This restriction has been imposed in order to keep the air and sea travel service from loosing business and it is alleged that high SLA officials receive big amount of money as commission from the air and sea travel agencies, the sources added. Meanwhile, Sivagnanam pointed out in his appeal that Jaffna peninsula is still being administered by the SLA and not by civil officers as widely claimed by the government.

According to the new SLA restriction persons travelling to and from Jaffna should use the same means of transport they had initially used.

The air fare being a hundred times more than the fare to travel through A9 road people are eager to use the land route. The sea fare too is relatively very high compared to travel through A9 road.

Sivagnanam has requested the related authorities to immediately lift the SLA restriction so that people could freely use the A9 land route to travel to and from Jaffna.