Interview: Sector specific Acts needed for water, petroleum, says DG PUCSL 

Jan 11, 2016 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Public Utilities Commission will need to have sector specific Acts for it to have power to regulate water and petroluem sectors, a senior official said. “Actually water and petroleum sectors are listed in our Public Utilities Commission Act which has been in operation since 2002 but we need sector specific Acts for water and petroleum for us to regulate those sectors,” Damitha Kumarasinghe, Director General, Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) said. “For electricity sector we have the Sri Lanka electricity Act through which we derive the power to regulate those sectors.” The government provided policy and legislative backing through its 2016 budget presented in November 2015 to broaden and strengthen the commission. “The government in the last budget has indicated very clearly that water and petroleum would be brought under the PUCSL regulatory purview,” he said. “So for that an Act should be there and passed by Parliament and only then we can regulate.”