Cricket makes Sri Lankans boil

Christine Jayasinghe

Mention cricket and Sri Lankans usually feel a warm glow. But this time they are hot with resentment as live telecasts and matches played under floodlights threaten to extend ongoing power outages.

Indian and New Zealand cricketers arrived in Colombo earlier this week as citizens sweltered and stumbled through island-wide night-time power cuts imposed in the last few weeks to avert a total breakdown in supply.

New Zealand and Sri Lanka played the opening match of the Coca-Cola triangular series on Wednesday evening under the high kilowatt lights of the Premadasa stadium in Colombo.

Besides the floodlights, the authorities are none too happy about the millions of cricket fans who will be glued to their television sets for up to eight hours.

The outages will be suspended while the matches are being televised and electricity board officials warn that the increased consumption will make a big draw on the national grid.

Ironically, the state-run Rupavahini channel has won the bid to show the matches live and officials there have said they have no intention of stopping the heavily advertised coverage.

The board says when the power interruptions are re-imposed, they may have to be extended them till the rains arrive and the daily duration of one-and-a-half hours will also have to be lengthened.

After the Coca-Cola series, India and Sri Lanka will battle it out in three Test encounters going on till September.

The electricity board toyed with the idea of suspending the power cuts if monsoon rains were plentiful, but with the arrival of the cricketers, they have cautioned that the outages could continue till October or later.

Weather forecasters have not been helpful with predictions of low rainfall in the coming months and hydropower reservoirs running dangerously low.

The island is dependent on hydro and thermal power, both subject to fluctuations, one in supply and the other in price. Consecutive annual droughts have seen electricity supplies fall while domestic and industrial consumption has continued to increase.

Industrialists have said there will be a drastic drop in production this year if the power cuts continue.

A fierce debate is raging over the government's shelving of a coal power plant, which was to have been sited at Norachcholai on the northwestern coast. Stiff opposition from the Catholic Church, which said the plant would threaten a popular shrine nearby, forced its cancellation.

Now the electricity board's engineers warn of a severe power crisis looming in 2004 when demand is going to outstrip supply considerably. Already, dealers are reporting a run on generators of all sizes as the more affluent try to beat the heat and industrial consumers try to keep factories working.

-Indo-Asian News Service