COLOMBO, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan government is planning to establish a Light Rail Transit System (LRT) in capital Colombo, which will be operational by 2025, the government information department said here Monday.

The government is taking measures to implement a LRT project to establish an efficient and effective passenger transport system in the Colombo Megapolis area, the information department said.

Under the proposed system, which is expected to commence operations by 2025, seven LRT lines have been planned to be constructed within Colombo and an LRT line will be extended towards Malabe, on the outskirts of the capital from Borella via Battaramulla.

Dimantha De Silva, senior lecturer at the University of Moratuwa and a Megapolis transport planner, said recently that an LRT system was needed to cater to anticipated transport demand in the planned Western Province Megapolis region.

"We need to provide a sustainable solution for transport for the next 20 years, not for five years," he said.

He said by 2035, Sri Lanka's forecast was 30,000 passengers per hour per direction in some transport corridors in the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR).

Planners have forecast that by 2035 the number of passengers in the main transport corridors with the CMR would rise from 1.9 million to 4.5 million.