The Southern highway project in Sri Lanka is a 126km-long express highway running from Colombo to Matara on the south coast. The project is a major part of the 130.9km Southern Transport development project.

The Southern Highway project was divided into two sections for financing purposes. The first section consists of the expressway from Kottawa (a suburb in Colombo) to Kurundugahahetekma. The second section consists of the long expressway from Kurundugahahetekma to Matara. The southern region of Sri Lanka will become easily accessible once the project is completed. The project will increase road safety and the travel time between Colombo and Matara will be greatly reduced. The project was initially estimated to cost $348.75m, but escalated to $741.1m. Construction was started in 2003 and the project was anticipated to be completed by 2010. It has, however, been delayed to mid-2011 as negotiations are ongoing between the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Export and Import Bank of China, regarding the financing of section four.

Planning and design

"Construction was started in 2003 and the project is anticipated to be completed by mid 2011." The expressway between Kottawa and Kurundugahahetekma is 66.5km long. The section is divided into two parts: package I and package II. Package I comprises the road from Kottawa to Dodangoda (35km) and package II is from Dodangoda to Kurundugahahetekma (31.5km). The road in package I was originally planned to be a four-lane road and package II a two-lane road. However, while implementing the project, a decision was taken that the entire expressway should be a four-lane road structure, with phase II expanded from the planned two lanes.

The project's second section involves construction of a 59.5km-long four lane road between Kurundugahahetekma and Matara.

The speed limit of the express highway is 120km/hr. Once the project is finished, the travel time between Colombo and Matara will be reduced from four hours to 1.5 hours.

Financing

The project is being financed by Japan Bank for International Corporation (JBIC), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL). JBIC provided a loan of $2.05bn, while ADB and GOSL provided $1.03bn and $1.26bn, respectively. JBIC's loan is availed for the 66.5km-long first section expressway from Kottawa to Kurundugahahetekma while ADB is funding the 59.5km-long second section expressway from Kurundugahahetekma to Matara.