SLT looks East

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) has made a commitment to cover 80% of the country’s Eastern Province with its fixed line network and provide at least 20,000 new CDMA wireless in the local loop (WiLL) connections in the area. The promise was made at a conference to review the progress of the second phase of the government’s ‘Reawakening of the East’ development programme, which involves a wide range of economic, social and infrastructure projects, including regeneration in ethnic Tamil areas. Eastern Province, capital Batticaloa, has a population divided between Tamils, Sri Lankan Moors and Sinhalese. The government merged it with Northern Province in 1987 only to separate the two again earlier this year.