Jaffna Telecom Tower construction delayed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 January 2000, 20:23 GMT]
Telecommunication engineers and construction engineers from the French Company Alcatel have expressed their reluctance to visit Jaffna to attend to the engineering functions at Telecom tower in Jaffna which is being newly constructed near the Pannai Bridge. This has delayed execution of some emergency functions, said the Jaffna district superintendent of Telecom, S. Kanagsooriar.

Sri Lanka Telecom has contracted Alcatel to build the Telecom tower and the associated switching equipment.

Last month, two employees of Alcatel went to Jaffna to start the building of the foundation for the Telecommunication tower. All building materials and equipment for the Telecom tower have already arrived in Jaffna, said Kanagasooriar.

The prevailing situation in Jaffna is the main cause of foreign experts' unwillingness to visit Jaffna to attend to contracted technical needs, said telecommunication analysts.