Telecom operators building towers in rural Sri Lanka will get a five-year tax break and a cash grant covering up to 75 per cent of construction cost, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced in the 2027 Budget on Thursday.
“There is a need for 700-800 new towers to enable high speed broadband internet in rural villages,” the President told Parliament, adding that 573 are being built under the programme, EconomyNext reported.
The support has three parts:
- A five-year tax break on tower construction
- A grant of 75 per cent of construction cost or Rs 35 million, whichever is lower, for each new tower
- Rs 5 million towards establishing an electricity connection to the site
The President addressed the obvious objection directly. “Why are we giving money to the private sector for building towers, they’ll ask. Why are we giving money?” he said. “The private sector prioritizes building towers in places with a higher population density. But they don’t build in areas where there is lower population density. Then rural villages don’t get coverage. So we must give concessions.”
The electricity grant reflects the siting problem: “Some places will be on top of hills, so they have to draw lines.”
The stated goal is broadband coverage in all areas of the country by 2030.
A new authority, and an AI centre
The President also said steps will be taken to establish a new authority for digital transformation, Hiru News reported. Under it, a Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence serving the digital economy will be set up on Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo.
The two measures were filed separately by the two newsrooms — EconomyNext on the tower incentives, Hiru on the institutional changes — and both come from the same budget speech.
Not reported
Neither filing says which body will administer the tower grants, over what period the 573 towers now under construction are due to be completed, what powers the new digital authority will hold or which existing agencies it would absorb, or what the AI centre will cost.
