SRI LANKA: Uneven development in former war zone
ATUMAGASKODA, 11 October 2012 (IRIN) - The Sri Lankan village of Atumagaskoda is only 6km from the town of Vavuniya - the financial and business hub in the north since the end of the country’s long civil war - but in development terms it is years away. 
Village roads here were cleared of jungle shrub and made suitable for vehicle travel only last week, almost three and half years after the war’s end.
“We have waited long for this. Finally, we got our roads cleared,” Punchirala Ranbanda, a village elder, told IRIN.
Rural residents in Sri Lanka’s former northern war zone (locally known as the Vanni) express frustration at being left behind in the fast-track development taking place near main towns and highways like the A9, A32 and A35, all of which are being widened.
Even the country’s president has noted the disparity. During a visit to the region on 25 September, President Mahinda Rajapaksa remarked that from the helicopter flying in, it was evident how development work in the towns has yet to seep into the villages.
In the village of Selvanagar, deep in Kilinochchi District some 10km from the main A9 highway, villagers were hand-digging a community well in early October. “We know it will take a long time if we wait for the authorities to do this. It would take months, maybe years, so we are doing it ourselves,” said Selva Ranjini, one of the female workers.
In neighbouring Ambankulam village, 17-year-old student Thanlaxmi Maheswaeri said jobs were so scarce that her family was finding it difficult to make US$40 monthly payments on a $1,500 loan taken out in mid-2010 to rebuild their war-damaged house. “There is no work, no businesses come here, no factories or anything that will give jobs,” she said.
She also spoke of erratic electricity, impassable roads and lack of public transport. “For any health emergency we have to get to Kilinochchi [about 10km away].”
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