An encounter with JRJ and the start of the privatization of the production of electricity in Sri Lanka-by Vera Gamini Samarasinghe Source:Island In 1987 I was awarded a Rolex Award for Enterprise by the Rolex Watch Company of Geneva Switzerland for doing original work on the river flows of the Belihuloya, which I had meticulously collected daily for four long years, walking four kilometres every morning sun or rain notwithstanding. The water flows and the subsequent topographical measurements which I made with physical surveys gave rise to the Belihuloya Hydropower Project, the highest project in Sri Lanka and the third highest in the world with a head of nearly 1,400 metres! It could have been built to a 85 MW capacity giving electricity for six hours a day during the peak period. I had built a wooden weir across the highest reaches of the Belihuloya where it exited the Horton ...

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