{"id":93078,"date":"2019-09-17T23:20:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T05:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93078"},"modified":"2019-09-17T15:39:44","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T22:39:44","slug":"late-mr-d-j-wimalasurendra-eng-sept-17th-67th-death-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/09\/17\/late-mr-d-j-wimalasurendra-eng-sept-17th-67th-death-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Late Mr. D.J. Wimalasurendra Eng,  Sept. 17th, 67th death anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Mahinda Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>It\nis my humble pride to write this mote of gratitude in memory to late Mr. D.J.\nWimalasurendra the Eng., the founder father of Hydro Electricity in\nCeylon.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Devapura Jayasena Wimalasurendra<\/strong> born 17 September 1874 (In Galwadugoda, Galle) \u2013 died 10 August 1953 with an unparalleled and invaluable service rendered to the Country and Nation which is in bleak memory now, but it is of my duty-bound to remember being a great-grandchild of the Vishwakula clan of which Late Mr. Wimalasurendra belongs is from Southern sect while I am of the Upcountry sect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"344\" height=\"515\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/wimalasundara.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-93079\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/wimalasundara.jpg 344w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/wimalasundara-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 344px) 100vw, 344px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Those were the days the County under the Colonial rule that only the Colombo and few other major cities and places important to Colonials were powered by Diesel generating sets and that had been no electricity around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was my great-great-grandfather who immensely had thoughts and rendered and sacrificed his academic and ancestral talents to create the marvelous work of Laxapana hydropower station which is also known as Wimalasurendra hydropower station situated near Maskeliya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like any other such sons of the Hela nation, he too had several barriers to pass through with many obstacles of saboteurs and enemies that did not like him doing his endeavor, however according to family chronicles that he even had to contest the Ratnapura electorate and enter to the Parliament in order to get his project approved by the then govt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The commendable initiative he had taken was so much excellent even the colonial rulers did not think about, thus Late Mr. Wimalasurendra deserves the same position of Michal Faraday of England and Thomas Edison of America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Nation is\nindebted timelessly to Late Mr. Wimalasurendra for lighting up the nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mahinda Karunaratne It is my humble pride to write this mote of gratitude in memory to late Mr. D.J. Wimalasurendra the Eng., the founder father of Hydro Electricity in Ceylon.&nbsp; Devapura Jayasena Wimalasurendra born 17 September 1874 (In Galwadugoda, Galle) \u2013 died 10 August 1953 with an unparalleled and invaluable service rendered to the Country [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}