The income restoration of the displaced people was a major objective of the Southern Transport Development Project (STDP) in Sri Lanka. This was the first project in Sri Lanka where social impact assessment was carried out. It was expected that SIA would lead to improved income restoration planning and better development outcomes, including better outcomes for its income restoration programme. SIA, however, turned out to be done poorly. Another SIA was then carried out, but this also followed the same flawed methodology as the earlier one. In the event, a project launched with a very laudable objective of rebuilding livelihoods of the STDP displaced people did not succeed as planned.