By Easwaran Rutnam-Wednesday, March 18, 2015
The Northern Provincial Council (NPC) has called for land and police powers to be given to the provinces, similar to the Indian system of devolution.
Indian Prime Minister NarendraModi, during his visit to Sri Lanka, had called for the early and full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the constitution.However Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran told Modi yesterday that the 13th Amendment cannot be the final solution. Speaking at the Jaffna Library last evening during Prime Minister Modi’s visit, Wigneswaran said that Sri Lanka needs a devolution system similar to that seen in India.
“The current 13th Amendment framework and the existing Sri Lankan constitution architecture that had evolved since the first republican constitution of 1972 without the consent and participation of the Tamils of the North and East of our country, poses formidable challenges and hindrances in realizing the quantum of devolution required to fulfill the needs and aspirations of the Tamil speaking people of the North and East of Sri Lanka,” Wigneswaran said.
The Indian constitution, Wigneswaran noted, allows the Indian States to manage their own development as well as law and order and land issues but the Northern Province is unable to function in the same manner.He said that even today parallel administrative structures exist, one directed by the center and the other by the province, despite the appointment of an amiable governor.
Wigneswaran called for talks between the Indian Government, Central Government and the Northern Provincial Council and Eastern Provincial Council on the political solution for Tamil speaking people.
Meanwhile Indian Prime Minister NarendraModi called for unity as he visited the North during the last leg of his landmark visit to the country and promised more aid to Sri Lanka.
Speaking at the same event at the Jaffna public library, Modi said that there needs to be unity when a country is looking to rebuild after war.
During Modi’s Jaffna visit, a protest was staged by families of those reported missing and others affected by the war, urging India’s assistance to seek justice.
The protesters had also handed over a petition to the Indian Deputy High Commission in Jaffna to be handed over to Prime Minister Modi.
