The Grama Shakthi Programme – Ideas To Make It A Success
Sri Lanka has not had a real development programme since 1977. The last major development programme where a concerned attempt was made to create employment was the Divisional Development Councils Programme(DDCP) of the Premier Sirimavo days. The Grama Shakthi Programme is therefore an initiative to be hailed.
It is also the responsibility of everyone who know and have first hand experience in poverty alleviation through employment creation – be they administrators or engineers or scientists or savants in the Private Sector to offer their expertise for the success of this programme. This Paper is my contribution to that programme
The DDCP was the last employment creation programme we had. That Programme created employment for 32,000 youths. I was one of the lieutenants of that programme- in charge of the Matara District, and contributed heavily with a Cooperative Mechanized Boatyard at Matara, turning out around 40 seaworthy fishing boats a year, established within three months and with a Crayon Factory which made crayons of high quality easily comparable to the world famous Crayola Crayons. These were in addition to many agricultural farms and other small industrial projects. In other districts too there were many projects implemented successfully. However it has to be admitted that creating employment to only 32,000 youths in seven years is no worthwhile achievement. This was due to the folly of the Ministry of Plan Implementation which directed the programme. In my words, “instead of import substitution type of projects the Ministry was advising us to concentrate on brick making, tile making and crafts- the areas where the Small industries Department had made inroads. In the Private Sector there were enough of tile and brick making factories. The Ministry was not interested in establishing any import substitution type of industries. The Ministry comprised officials who had a scanty knowledge of industries.”(From:Papers on the Economic Development of Sri Lanka). The Crayon Factory was established by me to prove that we can establish import substitution industries and the mediocre achievement of the DDCP should not deter our Government from suitable action to attempt at the creation of employment and poverty alleviation. This is all the more reason why the Grama Shakthi Programme should be hailed.
The Mahaweli Development Programme was a continuation of the Land Settlement cum Irrigation Tank Building Programme of the Fifties. Though we have achieved a great deal, we could have done better. My comments reveal what we lost:
“There is room to think that the Kotmale part of the project was a ploy to ethnically cleanse the area.. Many do not yet realize that the Mahaweli Project at Kotmale ethnically cleansed a section of the Nuwara Eliya District- the Sinhala Kotmale Valley for good…This project creates 201 mega watts of electricity. I could have done that with the erection of 40 wind turbines on any one of the Kotmale mountains. I have in my travels passed though many hills in Spain, Scotland and the US where the sight of 50 wind turbines on a hill is a common sight. These are on hills not on mountains like ours. On the Mahaweli Programme where we have an entire Ministry at work the original plan was to provide water to almost a million acres on the basis that an acre required only 5 acre feet of water. This was in a situation where on Government farms the water used was as low as 1.6 acre feet. However when the programme got under way it was found that the farmers used as much as 10 acre feet which reduced the possible acreage by half to around 500,000 acres.”(From:How the IMF Ruined Sri lanka…(Godages). We failed because we did not educate the farmers in water management.
