Pubudu Niroshan Hedigallage, the livewire of ongoing electricity reforms and director general of the power reforms secretariat, resigned yesterday. This Monday, Cabinet approved the Preliminary Transfer Plan for unbundling the Ceylon Electricity Board into four successor companies to handle generation, transmission, distribution, and system operation.
Hedigallage claims that a major part of the reforms are now complete, and his resignation from the secretariat spearheading CEB’s restructuring would not disrupt the reform process.
The Examiner learns that Hedigallage, in a different capacity, will likely continue to be involved in CEB’s unbundling. The ministry’s additional secretary general will oversee the secretariat until its term ends in June.
CEB sources link his departure to clashes between him and the energy minister over electricity reforms. Hedigallage was a polarising figure, with unions calling for his dismissal over allegations of conflicts of interest.
He was chosen for the post by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. In October last year, Kumara Jayakody, the energy minister, revoked Hedigallage’s term extension. The Sunday Times reported that the minister wrote to his ministry’s secretary, Udayanga Hemalapala, who extended Hedigallage’s term saying “you have overreached and have assumed the powers vested in the minister.”
However, the revocation was ultimately not carried out. The minister, ministry secretary, and Hedigallage all remained in office.
Hedigallage’s resignation comes at a key juncture in the reform process. On 30 December 2025, the energy ministry set the tentative ‘appointed date’ — the day when the CEB would be transformed into the four successor companies and cease to exist — for 1 February, now less than a fortnight away.
As per the new electricity act, there are four approvals needed for gazetting the ‘appointed date’: the preliminary transfer plan, generation policy, transmission policy, and national electricity policy. With the first three now in place, only the draft electricity policy is being finalised.
Preliminary Transfer Plan
As a precursor to the plan, the CEB’s successor companies were formed in October last year. But engineers worry about whether they’re ready to take on the CEB’s operations — especially finances and bank accounts critical for ensuring cashflow during the transition.
Isuru Kasthuriratne, the CEB Engineers’ Union’s spokesman, says over 2100 CEB employees, including around 75 of the CEB’s eight hundred or so engineers, have accepted voluntary retirement under the restructure. Most of them are young engineers.
Kasthuriratne also raised concerns about disaster resilience, noting that the speed of CEB’s service resumption post-Ditwah was possible due to its integrated structure. He called for greater clarity on how the successor companies will cooperate with each other.
Kasthuriratne says that the union will “most likely” challenge the plan in court, both on substantive and process grounds. “The incompleteness of the plan affects all CEB employees,” he added.
National electricity policy
The last remaining condition for the gazetting of the appointment date is Cabinet’s approval of the national electricity policy. Public comments for the draft released on 19 December 2025 closed this week.
Wijendra Bandara, a drafting committee member, said the policy's main objective was to “give high-quality electricity for the lowest cost”. “We also need to protect industries in the power sector because the government policy aims to involve the private sector, especially in power generation,” he said.
As the new electricity act allows the private sector to distribute and transmit electricity, Bandara says the committee has to “consider these companies’ survival”.
