We could only stay at the Laxapana Power Stations during the week. The DGM office of the Laxapana Complex is very close to the OE bungalow. To get there, you have to take the Colombo Hatton bus and get down at Kalugala, a very small town just after Kithulgala. From there you have to take an hourly bus to the Laxapana town. On the way you will pass the laxapana power stations, DGM office and OE bungalow. If you continue further you will end up in Norton bridge.
The atmosphere there is very relaxing. In fact, I took the liberty to write down some thoughts that crossed my mind. It reads,
“Naturally woke up at 6 am. The first breath in the morning totally wiped out all the carbon in my lungs which were collected during my entire life in Colombo. The air was cool and fresh. The sunlight was soothing to the skin. The quietness was pleasant to the ears. It was very relaxing. No rush. Even the people walking by don’t seem to be in a hurry.
It's a nice way to live.”
“It's Tuesday night. I'm in bed, going to sleep. Back at Colombo I needed a fan everywhere I go. Here the temperature is just right. I set the fan to the lowest position. Then it's slightly cold. It feels very comfortable. Goodnight.”

After a month of training inside air conditioned offices I went on the breakdown vehicle around Maharagama as soon as I reported to the Customer Service Center. It was a very interesting morning for me, but for the breakdown gang, it was just another day at work. At first I was amazed how the driver knew almost every byroad in Maharagama. After 2-3 hours I figured they have travelled the same roads over and over again. How could they forget? Most of the crew members have been working at LECO for a long time. They have a bite of beetle leaf before doing anything.

Head office and Branches does all the designing and planning. They are executed through Customer Service Centres, more commonly known as Depots. This is where LECO deals directly with consumers. It’s funny to see how in some areas people are scared of the breakdown vehicle because they are worried about non-payment disconnections.

It was really uncomfortable because of the heat, dust and smoke in the city, but to see how it all operates is fascinating.

Today was the last day at LECO Engineering Division. Everyone did their presentations. I think it would be important if I tell about some of the important things I noticed when doing a presentation. The presentations is done in front of the senior management which includes Dr. Narendra (Head of Engineering). Dr. Narendra is the leading personality when it comes to questions. What he expects is an overview sort of presentation. Therefore, including the main topics and explaining how it fits in would be sufficient. If you try to go into details, they will ask questions because they want to make sure whether the whole in depth details you know are correct. This is what we did. We only included what we thought most important. Actually we presented only about 10% of what we learnt. It was short and easy to handle. But, Mr. Karunanayake told us to learn about GPS data logging. We already knew that, but didn't include in the presentation. Next time we hope to include a keyword cloud where every important terms are arranged in a small space so that they know we learnt them as well.

Today we completed the whole process of the GIS division. I think I’m pretty confident that I could start working at that division even tomorrow. All credit goes to Mr. Ravindu who guided us into learning everything. The data logger they use is a PDA running on windows mobile. It is enclosed in a water/dust/shock proof cover. The software they use to enter all the data is called terrasync. The GPS receiver they use is worth 1.5 Million each. It can reach an accuracy of less than a meter.

In the evening we learnt about standard cost manuals. When getting to know all these, I got the feeling that in a private company everything is pretty organized. Cost manuals are used by branches to estimate costs of connection etc. They contain prices of each and every material used by LECO. There are particular set of materials used together, for an example, when giving out a new connection, the list of materials used are the same. These are bundled to create a collection of materials called a ‘Job Kit’. The cost for this is calculated for 1km. For example let’s say the branch has to construct a new LV line of 5 kms. They refer the standard cost manual to find the cost for 1km and multiply it by 5 to get the total cost for 5 kms. Elaborated details of these are provided in a separate volume (volume 2).

Being not sure whether we will have to travel the whole day to get to our training place, we entered the E.H.Cooray building 5 minutes before 8.30. Dr. Narendra briefed us on the training we’re going to experience during the upcoming 4 weeks. His idea about this new training schedule was, that it was a failure like the module system in our university. As he says, if we were to write an exam paper at the end of each year, covering all what we learnt during that year, students will have to do their day to day work in order to pass the examination. What’s learnt throughout the year will stay in our head longer, as he suggests. In the module system, anyone can take the notes from a friend, study during the last few hours, and pass the examination. He further explained, for the student who really wants to learn engineering, the new training schedule is good; it covers all the areas and the interested student will learn as much possible during the week there. If any student were to stay at one place for 6 months, he will have to learn something about at least that industry. This way, the student who’s not interested, will not learn anything. When he goes to industry, it will be very hard for him to cope up. My opinion is this is true, up to certain level.

Luckily we didn’t have to move anywhere. Our first week at LECO was in their Engineering Division at the LECO Head Office in Kollupitiya.


LECO only distributes electrical energy. Their assets are scattered all over their operating region. To carefully manage them and make plans for future demands, LECO maintains a massive Geo Information System (GIS). We learned how this maintained, the instruments used, on going development projects of the GIS and many more details.




On the latter half of the day, we looked into construction Manuals. They explain, in 4 volumes, the correct way to carry out all sorts of constructions that LECO does. For example, laying cables.

The purchase division showed us how they order material to the company. They have a specification that they send to their registered suppliers. They send in quotations. The purchasing division evaluates them, gets authorization from the senior management and complets the transaction.