JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Oct. 27, 2026 — Long-distance buses began leaving Jaffna’s new long-distance bus terminal on Tuesday morning, nearly five years after the 134-million-rupee facility was completed and left unused. The services started under a court order signed by a High Court judge who was removed from Jaffna three days after he issued it.
Northern Province Governor N. Vethanayahan, Member of Parliament K. Ilankumaran and Local Government Commissioner Sutharsan inaugurated the services at the terminal near Veerasingam Hall. Buses to other districts and provinces are now supposed to depart from there, instead of from the Central Bus Stand in the crowded town center.
The Sri Lanka Transport Board, the state-owned operator that runs a large share of the north’s long-distance routes, had not joined the combined service by Tuesday. The board’s regional operations manager and its depot managers in the province had signed the combined timetable in August.
S. Vimaleswaran, the chairman of the Northern Provincial Road Passenger Transport Authority, said it was the fourth time long-distance services had been launched from the terminal.
The court order
The opening rests on a writ of mandamus issued on May 25 by Judge A.G. Alexraja of the Northern Province High Court in Jaffna. The case was filed in February 2023 by the Jaffna Long Distance Service Bus Owners’ Company, which represents private operators. Its lawyer, K. Guruparan, argued that the provincial transport authority was required under a 2016 provincial statute to prepare a combined timetable for private and state buses, and had never done so.
According to the petition, the lack of a timetable left private and state buses competing for the same passengers on the same roads, which the operators said had caused confusion and accidents. The petition also accused the transport board of running services on routes for which it held no permit, and said a letter sent to the authority’s chairman in January 2023 had gone unanswered.
None of the four respondents contested the case. The transport authority, its chairman, the transport board and the board’s deputy general manager for the north told the court they had no objection to the relief the operators sought. Judge Alexraja ordered the authority to draw up and enforce a combined timetable with the private operators’ participation, to schedule inter-provincial semi-luxury buses so that they did not undercut ordinary services, to appoint time-keepers and to regulate state buses running on unauthorized routes.
On May 28, Judge Alexraja was removed from the Jaffna High Court with immediate effect and posted to the Badulla High Court, about 350 kilometers away. He had served in Jaffna for a little over a month. High Court judges in Sri Lanka ordinarily remain at a station for three to four years.
No official explanation was given for the transfer. Jaffna Monitor reported in May, citing legal sources, that it followed a letter from the governor’s office to higher authorities alleging that the judge was obstructing the work of the state. That complaint concerned a separate case in which Judge Alexraja temporarily halted a provincial inquiry into the Point Pedro Urban Council, before later dismissing the petition in the administration’s favor. Legal sources also said that Transport Minister Bimal Rathnayake was seen within the legal community as having had a role in the decision. Jaffna Monitor was unable to verify that allegation, and the government has not publicly addressed the transfer.
Mr. Vethanayahan, whose office complained about the judge, led Tuesday’s ceremony at a terminal now operating under that judge’s order.
Jaffna Monitor sought comment from the governor’s office, the Transport Ministry and the Sri Lanka Transport Board but did not receive a response.
Years of missed deadlines
The terminal was agreed upon at a meeting at the Jaffna District Secretariat in 2013, and its foundation stone was laid in 2017. The Urban Development Authority built it with Treasury funds and handed it to the Jaffna Municipal Council for maintenance. In a letter dated Dec. 22, 2021, the authority’s chairman at the time, Maj. Gen. Udaya Nanayakkara (retired), wrote that the transport board and private operators had agreed to the project and directed that combined services begin on Jan. 1, 2022.
That date passed without the terminal coming into use, as did later deadlines of Feb. 1, 2025, and Aug. 1, 2025. In February 2024, private operators in Jaffna withdrew their buses for a day and demonstrated in front of the transport board’s depot to demand a permanent stand. The governor at the time, P.S.M. Charles, appointed a five-member committee the following day to work out how the two operators could share the terminal.
Transport board officials made their position clear at a meeting at the Governor’s Secretariat in July 2025. K. Ketheesan, the board’s chief regional manager, told the meeting that the board’s trade unions in the north had refused to move out of the Central Bus Stand, and that management was “not in a position to act against their will.”
At the same meeting, Mr. Vethanayahan said that the Central Bus Stand stood on state land under the control of the Divisional Secretary, that shops had been built there illegally and that the transport board was collecting rent from them. A representative of Mr. Rathnayake told the meeting that claims the shops were needed for livelihoods were false, and that some of the shop owners also ran larger businesses nearby.
The following month, transport board employees went on strike against a combined timetable introduced on long-distance routes from Colombo, including to Jaffna. Their unions said the arrangement was costing the state money.
Traffic near the hospital
The terminal was intended to ease congestion in the town center, where the Teaching Hospital Jaffna and the University of Jaffna’s Faculty of Medicine lie close to the old bus stand. In an Oct. 15 letter announcing Tuesday’s start, the transport authority said the medical faculty had complained repeatedly about traffic around the hospital.
On Monday, Dr. Surendrakumaran, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, told reporters at the Jaffna Press Club that the terminal had still not come into full use years after it was built. He called for long-distance buses to be kept out of the town center and said ambulances needed unobstructed access to the hospital.
The authority’s Oct. 15 letter, addressed to the transport board’s regional manager and to the Northern Sri Lanka Private Bus Owners’ Association, said both sides were responsible for carrying out the court order, and warned that delay or a lack of cooperation “could create legal complications.” Copies were sent to Mr. Rathnayake, the governor, the district secretary, the mayor of Jaffna and senior police officers, among others.
Under provincial transport regulations issued in 2017, a combined timetable must assign 60 percent of services to private operators and 40 percent to the transport board. The regulations apply to every bus entering the province, and violations carry a fine of up to 10,000 rupees, a prison term of up to two years, or both. The authority said services would begin on the timetable already signed by both sides and would move toward the 60:40 division after a review.
Buses in four of the Northern Province’s five districts already run on combined timetables. Until Tuesday, Jaffna had been the exception.
