Garvin Karunaratne

Today most training programmes deal with the aspect of vocational training. Every country provides vocational training and at the end of the training period the graduands are awarded a certificate to the effect that they have successfully completed a vocational training course. The certificates are awarded with a great deal of pomp and pageantry. Thereafter the trained graduates have to either find wage employment on their own or establish a self employment project themselves and generate an income. Finding employment is a difficult task because the number of trained people searching for jobs is legion. Establishing oneƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s self in an income generating project, i.e. becoming self employed is also demanding and an extremely difficult task because one has to get into providing a service or getting into production and also market the items that one has produced. To be self employed one has to also find the capital to finance the enterprise.

Another important factor in assessing the DDCP lies in the fact that the DDCP created employment for the drop outs of the education system. In any country, the education system provides knowledge and training and those who are very successful enter the universities or institutes of higher education to attend to further studies. The next lot that get pass marks at secondary school, but fail to enter further studies enter the job market and find employment. Those who are not successful in the education system and who do not get pass marks are classified as the drop outs and they continue to do menial jobs or continue to be unemployed, scraping the barrel, for life. The DDCP dealt mostly with. the youths who are in the third category- i.e. the drop outs and therein lies its greatness.

Training on the job, ending in being fully occupied in a cooperative enterprise, or being self employed, in both cases being engaged in income generation activities is what the DDCP attended to. The fact that drop outs of the education system were concentrated on gives the DDCP a great place among development programmes.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Divisional Development Councils Programme

The DDCP was the flagship of the Sirimavo Government of Sri Lanka during the period 1970 to 1977. It had very wide and visionary aims in keeping with the Manifesto of the United Front that won the 1970 parliamentary election . It was ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- to transform the administration thoroughly, make it more democratic and link it closely with the peopleƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

As stated by Dr N.M.Perera, the Hon. Minister of Finance, in the Budget Speech 1973: ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-The main objective of this Programme is to create employment opportunities in the rural areas through small scale projects in agriculture, industry and the provision of infrastructural facilities, making use of the resources available locally: increase national production and involve the people in national development work.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

The DDCP was also aimed at bringing about integration in planning and implementation among the plethora of government departments and local institutions and charging these with popular participation as evocatively expressed in the Budget Speech of the Hon. Minister of Finance in 1970:
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- An entirely new structure for planning is being established (within which) each local authority will be the focus for development planning and plan implementation. Popular participation will be secured through the Divisional Development Council in which the elected organs of the village, the cooperative society, the cultivation committee,. the village council will have a planning and coordinating role in the overall development of their area.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

The chief aim of the DDCP was to create employment for the youth. As stated in the 1970 Budget Speech it was ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- to fulfill the aspirations of thousands of young men and women for whom life will lose all meaning unless they can find a useful place in our society.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

In actuality the DDCP was a crash programme with the objective of creating 100,000 jobs within the first year of the new government.. It was a socialist government that took office in 1970 and in keeping with the aims of the Government as reflected in The Five Year Plan of 1970, the aim was to ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-lay the foundation for a further advance towards a socialist societyƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

The Implementation Professor H.A.de S. Gunasekera, the eminent professor of economics at the University of Peradeniya was handpicked to lead the programme and he was appointed as the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Plan Implementation. The main charge of the Ministry was the implementation of this Programme.

The DDCP got off to a grand start. The Ministry of Plan Implementation was specially created for the purpose of planning and implementing the DDCP. Great prominence was accorded to the Programme. Even a helicopter was placed at the disposal of Professor Gunesekera, for him to travel to the various Districts. This was the first time that an administrator was accorded this privilege.

At the District level, the Government Agent, the head of the District was held responsible for this programme. The Government Agent was the officer in charge of all government departments that attended to development functions in the district, including, land development, social services, rural development, agriculture and agrarian services, small industries as well as the district administration. He was assisted at the divisional level by a Divisional Revenue Officer: Later this officer was called the Assistant Government Agent(AGA). The Divisional Revenue Officer was a member of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service and was in charge of a number of departments at the divisional level. He was the most senior public officer at the divisional level. In view of the fact that the Government Agent was in charge of all nation building departments it was relatively easy for him to deploy officers with relevant experience for various tasks on this programme. This enabled the DDCP to get off the ground quickly.

A Divisional Development Council was established in each division and these Councils were chaired by the Divisional Revenue Officer A number of Graduate Assistants were posted to each AGA area and there was a Graduate Assistant for each Council. The Graduate Assistants were recruited specially for this DDCP. This category was recruited from among unemployed graduates.

Popular participation was foremost in the mind of the Government. As Peris and Nilaweera state:
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- these councils were expected to enable popular participation in which the elected bodies of the village- the cooperative society, the cultivation committee, the village council could have a role in planning and coordinating the overall development of the area.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ (Rural Poverty Alleviation in Sri Lanka, 1983)

The Plan also included organizing agricultural, industrial, fisheries and other income generating projects and for obtaining the maximum participation of the people in the planning, operation and management of the projects. The Divisional Development Council was the method of eliciting the participation of the people in planning their own development.

The monthly meetings of the Council were held regularly and were attended by all the officers at the divisional level, representatives of all village level bodies and also by officers from the district level. Thus it was a body that could attend to the total planning of all development tasks at the divisional and village level.

Each Council was allocated Rs. 200,000.00 to be spent within the first two years. Of this, 35% was earmarked for agricultural projects. However specific approval had to be obtained for each project from the Ministry of Plan Implementation and the feasibility of each project was studied in great detail. Special grants were given amounting to 35% of the total cost including capital costs and working capital. For instance in the case of the Gohagoda Agricultural Project of the Kandy District, an average project, the capital cost was Rs. 65,000.00, the working capital Rs. 34,000.00 and the grant allowed was Rs. 32,000.00. By 1976, the penultimate year of this Programme, as much as Rs. 127 million had been spent on various projects.

While it was hoped that the Councils would be a coordinating body for all development work it was also projected that each Council would have to initiate and manage special projects where youths would be offered employment. What was new in the DDCP was that new projects were to be approved where youths would be enlisted, trained and guided to be employed in income generating projects.

In these projects, the youths were to work with community support where community leaders would help the enterprises. Earlier there were multipurpose cooperatives at the village level with an apex body- a cooperative union at the divisional level. What was new with the DDCP was the thrust of community cooperatives at economic development. Earlier the multi purpose cooperatives only attended to the distribution of essential food, the purchase of paddy, providing credit and supplies for agricultural pursuits. In addition there were industrial cooperatives established for making furniture and for crafts. Earlier there were a few Power Looms established on a cooperative basis.

The Achievement

By 1972, the DDCP was implemented islandwide. By 1973, 590 Councils were fully established and these Councils had submitted 1900 projects proposals of which 900 projects were approved and special allocations of funds were made for their implementation. All these projects were planned from the grass root level. These projects comprised 341 agricultural projects, 512 industrial projects and 47 infrastructural projects. Nearly 2000 acres were brought under cultivation, 68 poultry projects with a bird population of 150,000 were established and this enabled 7904 persons to find employment at an expense of Rs. 4.2 million. Over the period 1970 to 1976, a total of Rs. 127 million was spent and 33,271 jobs were created. Some of these offered only part time engagement.

The work of the Councils concentrated on developing these projects. The role of planning and coordinating the total development in the division gradually receded to the background and was ultimately forgotten. The Assistant Government Agent of the division already attended to the function of planning and coordinating all development work at the divisional level. He continued to do this work. Projects were planned and established in all districts. There was a duplication of work because many of the industrial projects approved for the Divisional Development Councils were in crafts, an area that also came under the Small Industries Department. There were a few non craft industries like ceramics. In agriculture, the thrust was at establishing cooperative farms and this was a new feature. The services of the Department of Agriculture was obtained for this purpose. In most agricultural and industrial projects the youth workers were able to draw good incomes.

There was a fine difference between the working of the Small industries Department and the DDCP. In the case of the Small industries department all private entrepreneurs running small industries were registered and their machinery inspected and capacity judged for purposes of allocating allocations of foreign exchange for the import of essential ingredients. Another aspect was craft industries where training was provided at Training Centers to enable the trainees to establish their own income generating projects. These entrepreneurs could go to the Center for further technical assistance. There was no day to day training and guidance in an on the job situation which was the hall mark of the DDCP. The aim of the DDCP Projects was to guide the entrepreneurs till they had mastered the art of achieving commercial viability.

Details are provided of the development work attended to in certain districts, known to the author. This would be characteristic of the work done in other districts.

Of special mention is the Paper Making Project in Kotmale in the Nuwara Eliya District where paper and cardboard making was commenced using waste paper and straw. This was a success till it was closed down by the new Government of 1977 which ran down the working and the achievement of the DDCP purposely.

In the Galle District progress was made in agricultural farms and in the manufacture of farm implements. The Baddegama Assistant Government Agent, Wilson Perera was provided with four Graduate Assistants and 12 Project Officers. The latter were officers with experience in the particular vocation whose services were sought and they had been seconded for service for the DDCP. Their task was to work with the cooperative workers on a participative basis, teaching youths the essential elements of entrepreneurship in producing and marketing the products. It was hoped that the youths would eventually acquire the ability and capacity to manage the cooperative industry or agricultural farm on their own on a commercially viable basis, when the Project Officer would leave them and revert to their own substantive post or be posted to lead another DDCP project. Thereafter the youths were expected to function on their own steam.

The development work done in Baddegama Council area included establishing a cooperative farm with 60 youths . At the very inception a neglected old farm was taken over. Its factory was repaired and a part of it was converted into residential quarters, 12 acres of neglected rubber was rehabilitated and tapping commenced, 40 acres of neglected tea was rehabilitated, 20 acres of jungle land was cleared and coconut saplings planted, 50 acres of neglected paddy land was rehabilitated and brought under regular cultivation. In addition, in 1975, a housing scheme was launched for the cooperators. Similar farm projects were established in most Districts.

The Baddegama Farm Project was a great success till it ran into political problems. The DDCP was a socialist concept and engineered by the Marxist group of Ministers of the Cabinet of Ministers. These included Dr N.M.Perera, the Minister of Finance. These Ministers left the Government in 1975 and thereafter less emphasis was placed on the DDCP. In December 1976, the farm was handed over to the Walpita Plantation. By then 40 acres of vegetative propagated tea was well established, 12 acres of rubber was in full yield and 50 acres of paddy land was in cultivation. On an overall basis the achievement was commendable.

In the working of the farm, weekly meetings were held for all the cooperators, also attended by the technical officers and the Assistant Government Agent. At these meetings every detail in planning and implementation was discussed and plans drafted for work in the coming week. Thus the cooperators were being educated on the job in a non-formal manner, with the technical officers providing the necessary technical knowledge. The Project Officer, a technically qualified worker, worked with the youths on a day to day basis.

Another successful project in the same Baddegama Council area was the manufacture of farm implements. Mammoties, forks and spades of high quality were manufactured. This project was a great success till the free market economy introduced by the new Government in 1977 flooded the country with cheap imported implements and in 1978 the project had to close down.

In the Matara District, where I was the Government Agent many projects were planned and implemented. The projects included garment making, batik dyeing, crafts, pre-stressed concrete, sewing industry projects etc. The sewing and craft projects were a replica of what was done by the Small industries Department.

A Batic Dyeing Cum Sewing Project was initiated in Morawaka where employment was offered to twenty girls. Batic Dyeing Training was at that time not done by any State Department or institution and it continued to be within the private sector with a very high margin of profit. We decided to march into this enterprise. Details are provided and this indicates the type of problems that crop up in the implementation of income generating projects. Because no State Institution dealt with Batic Dyeing the services of a Batic Dyeing entrepreneur was obtained from Galle, the adjoining district. He held initial discussions and provided details of the tanks that were to be built and the ingredients that had to be purchased for the training. The girls were recruited and the unit was to be opened with fanfare by no less a person than the Minister of Finance. With forty eight hours for the opening it became clear that the private entrepreneur was backing out and would not take any part in the project. We tried to find another trainer even from Colombo at whatever cost and failed. Finally two teachers known to me volunteered to become trainers. They had some knowledge of batic designing and dyeing and with their help the unit was opened. They had to study intricacies through books. The twenty girls were instructed in sewing and batic dyeing for over one and a half years on a day a week basis by these two volunteers. This illustrates the problems we had to face in stiff competition from private entrepreneurs that thought that our training and cooperative enterprises would eat into their profits. The Sewing and Batic Dyeing Unit was a great success.

In agriculture in the Matara District, vergin crown land was identified, jungles cleared, the land graded and brought under cultivation. A number of farms were established and the cooperator youths drew good incomes by cultivating cassava, ginger and other crops for which there was a market demand. The youth cooperators were taught details of crop planning, preparation of the land for cultivation, planting, , crop care, harvesting and marketing. All of these aspects were taught on the job as they engaged in the various tasks. The entire approach was participatory as detailed earlier in the case of the Baddegama Council in the Galle District. The aim was to make the youths think and thereby enhance their ability and capacity to get to working on their own. This included training in the management of every aspect of their cooperative enterprise.

The Morawaka and Deniyaya Councils had submitted a cheese and butter making project, to be commenced with available livestock in the area, but this was not approved by the experts at the Ministry of Agriculture who were of the opinion that milk supplies that could be expected would be insufficient for a factory. They said that small scale cheese and butter factories were uneconomical. This area had ample rain and a lush vegetation. The cooperator youths and the community leaders were keenly interested. There was a large cattle population on the Estates and many people in the area had dairy farms. In discussions with the Veterinary Department officials it was quite feasible to develop crossbred cattle that could be fed from grass that was available plentiful in the Deniyaya area. The community comprised many people who had livestock and were willing to provide their knowledge for developing this enterprise. It was years later that I came across small scale cheese and butter making factories in Bangladesh and in Switzerland. All of these units were small scale and also commercially viable. At that time in 1972, I did not hold my post-grad degrees for my ideas to be accepted with authority.

It is sad that our experts were using yardsticks that have been traditionally used to judge the viability of dairy farms. Animal production experts schooled in the industrialized countries are firstly concerned with the availability of land for dairy cattle. They argue that cattle compete with human beings for land. They forget the fact that in Third World countries cattle are actually complementary to human life and do not compete with human beings for land.. The experts also go on the basis of the value of milk and meat production and ignore the value of cattle dung and cattle for draught purposes. As explained by me and Professor Wagstaff:

Animal productionists schooled in the industrialized countries are inclined to view the ratio of milk plus meat energy to total food energy input(which is positively related to yield) as conversion efficiency. But this concept ignores two critical aspects of livestock production. Firstly, when dung and draught power have value the apparent simplicity of the energy conversion efficiency concept vanishesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ Secondly, it is wrong for economic purposes simply to aggregate feed inputs on the basis of gross or net energy values. What matters is the respective opportunity costs of feed concentrate and energy from roadside and fallow land grazing are clearly not equivalent. (Karunaratne & Wagstaff)

The criteria that has to be used in the case of the Third World should include the value of the output values of dung, draught power in addition to the values of milk and meat. In this connection the two recent books by John Perkins comes to my mind. In Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Perkins tells us how he as a senior official of a leading multinational had to fabricate reports with false premises that led to the use of donor funds in a manner that the funds poured in to the country went back to the donor countries with interest while at the same time making the country indebted. This is sabotage which was advocated and enforced on Third World countries. An essential part of this strategy was to provide the wrong advice on development following which the industrialized and agriculturally developed super powers did not allow our development. In this instance it was dairy farming where the experts were interested in furthering the imports of milk food to Third World countries. Our dairy farming had to be sabotaged to ensure that the EU countries, Australia and such developed countries could continue to find markets for their dairy products in Sri Lanka.

Other important industrial units established included a Hand Made Paper Unit at Yatiyana, an industry that has survived to this day(2009), recycyling used paper from government offices.At Kekanadure, an industry making agricultural implements was established in a village which was traditionally associated with the industry. This industry exists till today(2009).At Talpawila training in pottery was imparted to youths and a pottery industry was successfully established. This industry exists till today(2009). A Pre-Stressed Concrete Factory was established at Talpawila which made concrete pipes and posts of all types. This industry exists till today(2009) and currently employs 40 youths.
The Morawaka Council submitted a proposal to establish a Water Colour Paint making project, A Feasibility study was made by the Industrial Development Board at our request. The project was aimed at avoiding imports. There was no resource in the area for this industry other than labour, but that was the strategy used by Japan and Singapore in their industrial development. The Ministry of Plan Implementation rejected this application. Instead of import substitution type of projects the Ministry of Plan Implementation was advising us to concentrate on brick making, tile making and crafts- the areas where the Small Industries Department had made inroads with great success.. In the private sector there were plenty of tile and brick making factories. I had earlier worked as Deputy Director in charge of small industries in the private sector, registering them, guiding them and making allocations of foreign exchange to enable them to import their import content direct. The Ministry was not interested in establishing any import-substitution type of industries. Though we had submitted various proposals for Import-substitution type of industry they were all thrown into the dustbin. The opening of more craft and textile based industries was a repeat of what the Small Industries Department was already attending to and inevitably led to over production. The Ministry comprised officials who had a scanty knowledge of industries and they were frightened to approve industries in new areas. The Permanent Secretary was a professor of economics, an excellent academic who had no experience whatsoever in planning and establishing industries and his assistants too were officers who had no real experience.Comparatively I had a great experience of directing and establishing small industries both as the Additional Government Agent at Kegalla District when I was in charge of small industries and in my work as the Deputy Director of Small Industries. It came to a point where it was impossible to obtain any approval for any new industry other than farm and craft.

I therefore decided to plan and establish a cooperative industry on my own. I was ably assisted by the Planning Officer who happened to be a chemistry graduate and Chandra Silva a resourceful officer who was the District Land Officer. He was working on the DDC Projects in addition to his duties. A graduate trainee Dayananda Paliakkara was specially selected to handle this task.

In my work as the Deputy Director of Small Industries I had approved many new industries to be established and I had directed all my officers that they should investigate when they go for inspections and be certain that the entrepreneur actually manufactured the product. On my inspections too I saw that the items were really produced. This was done because there were people who pretended to have industries in an attempt to secure allocations of foreign exchange, import and sell the goods in the market instead of engaging in production. I had approved an industry to make water colours and was familiar with the process of manufacture. According to my opinion crayons was allied to making water colours. I decided that this could be an area for action. At that time easily 90% of the countryƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s requirements were imported and if we succeeded we will be creating employment for the unemployed and at the same time cutting off imports. The import content of the ingredients was easily less than 20% and this looked ideal. Already we had done some spadework in the case of water colours, an allied industry, but I could not select water colours as an industry because we had applied to the Ministry of Plan Implementation and it had been rejected. I therefore decided on making crayons and in this item too over 90% of the countryƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s requirement was being imported.

After we had done some initial experiments and was hopeful of success, we had to obtain the services of a laboratory. I spoke with Mr Ariyawamsa, the Principal of Rahula MahaVidyalaya, the premier educational institute in the District. I knew a number of science teachers at this College, who offered ideas. Mr. Ariyawamsa readily agreed to allow us to use the College science laboratory for experiments to find out the technical process for the manufacture of crayons. We were also helped by the Science Inspector Mr. Rajapaksa. I had heard about the working of the Land Grant system in the USA where the Universities offered their technical expertise to bring about national development.

Pooling the knowledge of every scientist that was available, led by our Planning Officer,Vetus Fernando it did not take long to find out the exact proportions of each ingredient that had to be used and to arrive at the real process of manufacture. The process was gradually mastered, but the crayons were not firm enough and Vetus Fernando, the Planning Officer who happened to be a chemistry graduate of the University thought it best to obtain the help of the Chemistry Department of the University of Sri Lanka, from where he had graduated a few years earlier. Vetus spent a number of days beseeching and begging his professors but none of them were interested in offering any advice.

If any one of the dons had to spare an hour or two to have a careful look, to think of how it could be solved and try a few experiments- that was all that was required. This was a situation where a Land Grant University like Michigan State would have taken on the mantle of development very willingly. But sad to say our Universities are more engrossed with training graduates rather than been concerned about the role they could play in the development of the country. We continued experiments at the Lab at Rahula College and mastered the art of making crayons in around a further month.

Using the facilities and pooling the available expertise at the College was the same method that was used in the Lands Grant University Programme that brought about the development of the United States. We were not doing anything new but we were for the first time using the expertise locked up in educational institutes in Sri Lanka for the task of national development.

Once the process of manufacture had been finalized I had to decide how we would proceed with the manufacture. It had to be a cooperative structure. Further it had to be done with a great deal of secrecy because I was not expected to be establishing new industries without the approval of the Ministry of Plan Implementation. Though as the Government Agent of the District I controlled vast funds; each vote had a definite remit which had to be meticulously adhered to in spending. Finally I decided to trust Mr Sumanapala Dahanayake, the Member of Parliament for Deniyaya, an electorate in my District. He was involved with the Morawaka Divisional Development Council activities and was conversant with the planning and feasibility study we did for the water colour industry application. He was also the President of the Morawaka Cooperative Union and in that capacity he had access to the funds held in the Cooperative Union which we could use as capital for the necessary expenses. However he had no authority to use the funds for a new industry. This was a deadlock that had to be surmounted.

As the Government Agent of the District I was gazetted as a Deputy Director for Cooperative Development. This had been done with the idea of the Government Agent supervising the Assistant Commissioner of Cooperatives and the work of the Cooperative Department in the District for the purpose of implementing the agricultural development programme. I usurped the full powers of a Deputy Director of Cooperatives and ordered the President of the Morawaka Cooperative Union to use funds available with the Coop Union and establish the industry and get down to manufacturing crayons. I forbid the Assistant Commissioner of Cooperatives from informing his boss, the Commissioner of Cooperatives in Colombo, who could have shot down my activities. The Commissioner was a close friend of mine but no maverick and I was certain that he would not approve my action. I had to keep him in the dark. Sumanapala Dahanayke the President of the Coop Union, the maverick he was, readily agreed and we got down to establish the industry. Twenty unemployment youths were recruited and the Coop Union purchased the necessary equipment. More youths were employed for packing and handling.

The industry was established and we got down to the making of crayons; labels and boxes were hastily printed and crayons packets were produced to fill a large room. This was done very quickly, working day and night because secrecy was a prime necessity. It was a grand task where every one- officers and cooperators pitched in to work as a team- working day and night. If the Ministry of Plan Implementation got wind of the project they could stop it forthwith, hold an inquiry and punish me. The task was to establish the manufacturing unit, make good quality crayons and to show them to key Cabinet Ministers and get them involved so that they could stand up for me in case there was a problem. The Minister for Industries Mr T.B.Subasinghe was surprised when shown the crayons that were produced and readily agreed to open the sales. With that we felt safe. With the inauguration of the sales, the industry came to the open and the success in production and sales amply justified the fact that no Ministry approval had been obtained. The Ministry of Plan Implementation had to eat humble pie and finally the crayon factory, established without authority in a most clandestine manner, gained the full approval of the Government.

The only import item in the ingredients that went into the manufacture was dyes and at the initial stages we obtained dyes at black market prices from the open market. The Ministry of Industries was requested for an allocation, but they said that they had no foreign exchange to be allocated to cooperatives for this purpose. An year earlier as Deputy Director of Small Industries I was personally in charge of allocating foreign exchange for small industries and I could have given an allocation for any cooperative. The personnel in the Small Industries Department and the Ministry of Industries were not prepared to bend the rules for the sake of national development. Finally we had to beseech the Controller of Imports, Harry Guneratne. The Controller of Imports allocated funds for the import of crayons and readily agreed to my suggestion to allocate funds for the import of dyes and to reduce the allocation for imports accordingly. Guneratne had the capacity to understand that in a crayon the import constituent was only 5 to 10% and he was making a real saving in foreign exchange to the extent of 90%. The Minister of Trade, Mr T.B.Illangaratna, whose authority was sought, too readily agreed. He was surprised with the quality of the crayons and it ended with a request from him that we should commence a crayon factory in Colombo. We put off that request for the moment stating that we would do that after our crayon industry was fully established on a commercially sound footing.

This crayon industry was a grand success which paid up the total outlay in the first six months of its operation. After I left the Administrative Service in April 1973, the industry continued under the able direction of the Government Agent of the District and Sumanapala Dahanayake the President of the Coop Union till 1977 when the new Government interfered. Any good industry established by the former government was anathema to the new Government and the new Government sent a Deputy Director of Cooperatives, N.T,Ariyaratne with specific instructions to find fault with this industry so that they could take action against Sumanapala Dahanayake, the President of the Coop Union, the earlier member of parliament, who had established the industry under my direction and had with the youth cooperators managed it in a commercially viable manner. Mr Ariyaratne had found the industry in proper order fully commercially viable and reported that the industry was an asset and this saved Mr. Dahanayake.

However, the crayon industry had to close down due to the onslaught of imports under the free trade policies of the new Government. At its heyday from 1972 to 1977 this crayon industry did produce around a tenth of the crayon requirements of the country and it could easily have been developed to produce not only the countryƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s entire requirements but could have even be developed to build up an export trade.

Full details of the problems that were faced in the establishment of the crayon industry have been given to illustrate the odds faced in establishing industries. It is not an easy task to establish a new industry from scratch. In any country when a successful industry is established it should be closely supported and guarded in the national interest. Not so in Sri Lanka, when political rivalry raises its ugly head..

As stated earlier the Marxist Ministers led by Dr N.M.Perera leaving the Government in 1975 led to the Government de- emphasizing the DDCP. With the free market and liberalization policy followed by the new Government the death knell of the DDCP was sounded. In the Budget Speech of 1978, it is said that though as much as 2619 projects were approved, 666 projects never got off the ground and of the balance approximately 700 closed down by 1976, of the remaining 700 only 5% were found viable, and as much as 72% of the agricultural projects had failed. This was more a part of the tirade that the new Government had toward the DDCP flagship of the former Government.

Strengths and Weaknesses
Many are the weaknesses and the strengths of the DDCP.

The weaknesses are many. As pointed out earlier, the Ministry of Plan Implementation was approving only traditional and craft type of industry and agricultural farms and was shy of approving new import substitution type of industry. Perhaps the Ministry was frightened to march into new areas of activity because any failure would reflect badly. Imports eat into our available foreign exchange and also cause our people to be unemployed. Concentrating on crafts and basic traditional industries amounted to duplicating the work done by the Small Industries Department that had been active earlier. The Ministry should have actually taken the forefront to plan and establish import substitution type of industries.

Another weakness was that the Programme solely depended on worker cooperatives and left the private sector totally alone. If the private sector had been activated in addition, then it would have been a case of walking on two legs.

The main weakness lies in the Parliamentary form of party political governance system where when a new political party comes into power it throws away all the programmes and policies of the earlier government irrespective of successes. In the process, the baby is also thrown away with the bath water.

There were many weaknesses in the administration which ate into efficiency. It was difficult to obtain the services of able officers to function as project officers. In one of my agricultural farms the Ministry of Agriculture insisted on posting an officer who was inefficient and lethargic, resulting in having me to have severely punished him on an earlier occasion. However he was posted despite my protests. Inevitably this farm failed. Other Government Departments like the Department of Fisheries- involved for the Boatyards which were established in my district, the Industrial Development Board- involved to draft and approve feasibility reports for the approval of industries, the Cooperative Department- for the formation of cooperatives failed to cooperate. The Ministry of Fisheries was not interested in our opening the boatyard. The Industrial Development Board delayed long in preparing feasibility reports. In one sewing industry established in my District, the cooperative inspector was not interested in registering the cooperative and had to be actually threatened with immediate interdiction by me for him to take action.

The Strengths lies in the few projects that were successful. These commercially viable ventures helped the national economy. Their production did save foreign exchange that would have been incurred in imports. The fact that employment was made available for the cooperative entrepreneurs is also of key importance.

An additional strength was the educational process of building up the abilities and the capacities of the participants and making them self-reliant entrepreneurs, able to stand on their own feet. This was due to the strategies of community development and non formal education which we used. At that time administrators who worked in the Rural development Department and that included the Government Agents of the Districts and the Assistant Government Agents in charge of Divisions had come to follow community development strategies and principles. We administrators had not even known the word non formal education, but we thought it best that we work with the trainees in a truly participatory manner, so that they could learn on the job.

In the planning and implementation of the DDCP the Ministry of Plan Implementation did not give us any instructions as to how we should adopt a participatory approach. However the officers under the Government Agent included those who had worked for long under the Rural Development Department which attended to rural development work with the participation of the people. This Rural Development Department was our counterpart to the Community Development Programme of India and many other Third World countries that were implemented in the Fifties. The Rural Development Department followed the principles of Community Development as enunciated by the United Nations; The term Community Development has come into international usage to connote the process by which the efforts of the people themselves are united with those of Governmental authorities to improve the economic , social and cultural conditions of communities, to integrate these communities into the life of the nation and to enable them to contribute fully to national progess. This complex of processes is then made up of two essential elements ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…”the participation of the people themselves in efforts to improve their level of living with as much reliance as possible on their own initiative and the provision of technical and other services in ways which encourage initiative self help and make them more effective.(United Nations, 1965)

It so happened that the entire staff handling development in Sri Lanka at the District level came under the influence of the Community Development ideas and this included the Government Agents who were development hardened workers who had a great deal of experience. It did not need directions on how to handle the education aspect to officers that had attended to working with the people for decades. The result was that the staff handpicked for the planning and the implementation of the DDCP did use the community development participatory approach.

This included non formal education ideas as defined by me later on: Non Formal Education comprises experiential education processes to which people as participants are spontaneously subjected to as they actively work on an individual basis or in any group endeavour, be it in a discussion in the decision making that takes place in a trade union or a cooperative. It is completely spontaneous and as the learner participates, thinks and conscientizes, weighs the pros and cons of a problem and arrives at decisions, knowing fully well the confrontations involved and as the participants cooperate to face the obstacles, get used to collaborative practices of mutual help in achieving the tasks then through these repeated educational experiences, their initiatives develop and they become responsible.(From Karunaratne: Non Formal education Theory & Practice at Comilla)

This quote would encapsulate the educational methods used by us in educating the trainees in the on the job situation in the various agricultural farms and industrial projects. Details provided of the projects in the Baddegama electorate in the Galle District and the Matara District shows that educational strategies were used to effectively enable the trainees to whet their abilities and in that process they gained the ability to become self reliant entrepreneurs.

This educational enhancement is the strength that should have been built upon in every development program.

In the case of the DDC Programme projects, with an initial grant for the machinery and a paltry allowance till the entrepreneurs derive incomes, we paved the way for the unemployed youth of a country to become net contributors. In this process they march from being net consumers to become net contributors. They have also in the process developed their abilities and capacities to stand on their own feet. This is a strength that stands in good stead.

In Projects, the manufacture of farm implements in Baddegama, , the manufacture of crayons at Deniyaya, the pre-stressed concrete industry at Matara, the making of paper products at Kotmale and Matara and a number of such industries were all well established and commercially viable. So were many textile and sewing industries. The good number of DDCP industries that have been successfully implemented even today(2009), defying the inroads of imports indicate the viability of the DDCP Projects and the underlying strategies. The main tenet was import substitution which is forbidden under the IMF rules of the Structural Adjustment Programme, Even today, three decades later, my blood boils when I see a packet of foreign crayons being sold in Sri Lanka. My mind travels back in nostalgia to the time when the crayon factory provided employment to scores of youths in making and packing crayons and in selling them island wide.

. Establishing the crayon industry was easily the happiest task I had done in my eighteen yearsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ service to my Mothercountry. It was also the most dangerous task I had done because I was not authorized to establish a new industry without the specific approval of the Minstry of Plan Implementation. I had experience in handling small industries earlier and was certain that the venture would be a success. If it had failed I would have been demoted for certain but I was certain of success. Further I knew Dr N.M.Perera the Minister of Finance personally as he had been a member of parliament in the opposition in Kegalla District where I worked as the Additional Government Agent for two full years. He gauged my ability and I became one of his trusted lieutenants in the field of development. I was certain that he would have stood up for me if I fell into a scrape by attempting to do the impossible which other administrators would shrewdly avoid.

Today I have noticed that our waste paper and waste cardboard is packed neatly and shipped to India where it is reprocessed into cardboard and re exported to Sri Lanka. Since 1977 under free market economics we have actually been following a policy of creating employment for people in other countries and not allowing our people to become gainfully employed. The unemployed are truly legion in number and in their desperation due to the lack of opportunities in our country brave the seas in shallow craft, even hide themselves in container and hide themselves among the wheels of trains in an attempt to reach a land of prosperity and find employment. Many of them are swept under the waves. Few of them reach the western countries where they become bogus asylum seekers. They are in reality economic migrants driven out of their hearth and home by the lack of opportunity.

The DDCP had all the elements of a great employment creation programme, which was lost partly due to defects in the Programme itself , due to administrative ineptitude and partly due to political rivalry.

What should have happened is what did happen in Singapore. In the words of Michael Smith
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-The real clue to SingaporeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s success has been a brave, consistent, government generated long term industrial strategy. Professor Tom Stonier sees that strategy as having worked in two stages, In the early Sixties the emphasis was on import substitution. The Government had high tariff protection to help industries that would reduce dependence on imports. In the second phase, the emphasis shifted to export oriented manufacture. (From AsiaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s New Industrial World) Singapore has had a steady rule by a single government for decades and thus did not suffer from political party rivalry.

Conclusion
The DDCP of 1970-1977 was a genuine attempt at brining about development. Its achievement and the strengths and weaknesses have already been dealt with at length.

Though certain aspects of the DDCP, like the agricultural farms and industrial projects were a great success and could have been easily built upon, the DDCP came to an abrupt end due to the fact that the newly elected President JayawardenaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Government wanted the DDCP, discredited, annihilated and closed down. It was necessary for the new Government to paint everything that the earlier government achieved as black as possible. This was to get political mileage. It is sad that development in the Third World countries does fall between two stools, whenever a new government is formed.

Development requires a long standing effort where programmes get continuously reviewed and renewed where the dead wood is dropped and new vistas are commenced. In any programme the weaknesses have to be identified and annihilated while the strengths are further developed on. This ideal is not possible in the case of a country where at the hustings an entire government can be changed. This is inimical for development. Perhaps the method of elections to the US Congress offers a model where continuity can be hoped for. This is because it is only a third of its members that are elected annually. This newly elected one third of Congress members join the already elected two thirds and continue . Thus the development that has been achieved is not lost.

Comparison with Other Development programmes.
The achievement of the DDCP can easily stand comparison with other development programmes. In the DDCP the emphasis was on employment creation through cooperatives and in enabling the youth of a country to gain entrepreneurship knowledge and experience that will enable them to fit into life as contributing members of society. The youth of any country stands out as a group of people whose aims have to be reckoned with. Of this youth there are the high achievers who have entered further studies in the universities and other institutes of higher education. Then there is the majority who have secured a pass at the O Levels and are qualified for a petty job as a clerical officer. At the bottom of the ladder is the third category of drop outs some of whom have received a modicum of training, something that does not enable them to find a secure job and are resigned to carve out a miserable life. It is this segment of the youth that the DDCP catered to and it is creditable that employment was found for 33,000 of them.
The DDCP can stand comparison to many other development programmes both in Sri Lanka as well as overseas.

The Rural Development and Cottage Industries Programme of the Fifties had its heyday before 1956.

The original Cottage Industries Programme and its successor, the Small industries programme did not include on the job guidance. This was more a programme that provided some training in cottage crafts and urged the trainees to get into production. The on the job training was offered only in the Powerloom Cooperatives and a number of Powerloom Industries were established in the early Sixties. This was limited to the manufacture of textiles.
The strength of the DDCP lies in targeting the unemployed youth especially in cooperative projects and in this respect it gained more than many other programmes that targeted the entire population. The importance of cooperatives to attend to development comes into focus when one realizes that cooperatives do stay within the area while private entrepreneurs who are successful either sell their ventures or even take their enterprises out of the original village area where they originated. With success private entrepreneurs leave their rural areas in search of affluence. On the contrary cooperatives stay with the people.

Comparison with training programmes in other countries, too it is found that there are very few all encompassing programmes that include all the elements of vocational training and on the job training till commercial viability is reached. Such Programmes are really very few and the number of such programmes all over the world can be counted on oneƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s palm and the DDCP is one of them. India was the one country that immediately after achieving independence picked the brains of the United NationsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ organizations along with the most erudite intelligentsia of premier Universities, designed and implemented the Community Development Programme in 1952. In Prime Minister NehruƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s words the attempt was to build up the community and the individual and make the latter the builder of his own village center and of India in the larger sense.(Kurukshetra3/10/70). It was implemented throughout India. Though planned well and meant to kindle a new sense of community and assist in launching the take off in economic development, but instead it has been diverted into an officially controlled bricks and mortar programme of public works devoid of almost any popular dynamic.(Balawantray Mehta Report).
It was unfortunate that the Programme failed. In the words of Mukherjee, one of the chief implementers: Not enough thought was devoted to the process of community development and to relating the programme activities to the community development objectives.(Mukherjee;1961) In my own words, in the manner it was implemented the people saw community development as a task oriented programme. Although the people were involved by their contribution of labour they were never real participants.(Karunaratne:1976) This Programme failed in the critical task of building up the abilities and capacities of the trainee participants.
This Community Development Programme was aimed at social development and it did not emerge as an employment creation programme. There was no vocational training on an organized basis. The DDCP can be compared with the TRYSEM(Training Rural Youth for Self Employment) of India . TRYSEM is the training component of the IRDP(Integrated Rural development Programme) of India. This is a gigantic programme that has been implemented over a decade and is an ongoing programme. While the IRDP provided grants for people to attend to self employed ventures TRYSEM provided training to youths. However there was no guidance to the trainees when they engaged in their income generating ventures. In my own words: in the absence of planning on a family or village level basis, the training(TRYSEM) had to be haphazard. What happened was that the receipients of the loans did not have training, no definite planning and no technical support on a systematic basis to ensure that they got into production. (Karunaratne: Alleviating poverty in India,2007)

This defect was even highlighted in the Tenth Five Year Plan of the Government of India:
The Programme was basically subsidy driven and ignored the processes of social intermediation necessary for the success of self employment programmes. A one time provision of credit without follow up action and lack of continuing relationship between borrowers and lenders also undermined the programme objectives.

One can also compare this DDCP to the Rural Works Programmes of India, where a guarantee of a number of days of work a year is offered and people are found employment. The best rural work scheme was the Maharashtra Employment Guaranty Scheme(MEGS) which was legislated in 1977. This Programme provides a guaranty to all adults over 18 to do unskilled manual work on a piece rate basis. Every adult person in the rural areas in Maharashtra shall have the right to work and that is a right to get employment. The MEGS was expanded from providing 4.5 million person days in 1973 to around 190 million person days in 1986. This declined to 80 to 90 million person days after 1989. The importance given to the MEGS is reflected in the fact that its expenditure amounted to 10- 14% of the total development budget of the State.

There is no training element in the Rural Works Programmes. The work created is hard labour but there is no opportunity for the workers to find or be guided towards becoming employed. Neither are there any elements that would develop the abilities and initiatives of the workers. It was a task oriented works programme where the people are given tasks of work like tilling land, earthwork on bunds etc which do not contain any element of training.

. Though this programme is implemented with much fanfare and expanded this Programme does not include the elements of placing the trained in an income generating situation, ending in the trainees being guided to a situation of commercial viability.

The DDCP is in the category of employment creation, and thus can be compared with the Comilla Rural Development Programme and the Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh.. The latter programme was designed and established by the author himself, working with Bnagladeshi administrators.

In the Comilla Rural Development Programme the cooperative society was accepted as the base for all development activities. All the members of the cooperative met weekly and planned their own development activities. Loans were provided and agricultural training was offered to the members. Employment creation was a part of this Programme. In the Comilla Programme employment creation was a success It was an all encompassing programme as explained by Muyeed: The Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development in its efforts at rural development initiated a wide range of educational programmes aimed at developing the required knowledge, skills and educational climate compatible with the problems evolved as multi dimensional and diverse in contents and approaches in relation to the specific nature and types of the target groups- i.e. school children, community people, women and out of school youth, All these porogrammes taken together contributed largely to attain considerable progress in building a system of self sustaining production and economic development in real situations.(Muyeed: 1978:10P442)
Comilla was a highly successful programme in that it created production and employment for everyone in the area of operation- the Kotwali Thana. Compared to the DDCP, while the DDCP dealt with only employment creation- the Comilla Programme had employment creation as an essential part of its all comprehensive programme. The DDCP concentrated on creating employment through cooperatives handling different projects and the DDCP has actually been concentrating on one aspect of the Comilla Programme..

The Youth Self Employment Programme of Bangladesh was an employment creation programme where the trainees were persuaded to plan their own income generation projects and implement them with on the job guidance on an intensive basis. The emphasis in the YSEP was on individuals- on youths establishing their own employment projects while in the case of the DDCP the aim was to create cooperative employment. This was entirely on an import substitution basis. The YSEP concentrated on training and on the job guidance on a massive basis and by 1997 as much as 160,000 a year were trained and guided to be self employed. By 2005 the programme had bagged over a million to be self employed on a commercially viable basis. On the job training is a key element in both the DDCP , the Comilla Rural development Programme. As well as the Youth Self Employment Programme. The premature termination of the DDCP after the new Government of President Jayawardena took over in 1977 did actually abort the DDCP from developing towards a national permanent programme of development.

It is hoped that the experience of the DDCP and the strategy used to build up our industries, agriculture and livestock, to enable employment for our own people will help us to annihilate poverty and deprivation from our midst. The Millennium Development Goals hope to alleviate poverty by 2015. I am of the opinion that poverty an deprivation can be abolished in Sri Lanka within five years if we follow a path of self reliance, self sufficiency and full employment for our people, by developing our own industries, agriculture and livestock. That is the spirit of the DDCP. Let us put our shoulder to the wheel instead of begging the international community for Aid and grace.

Relate the experience of the DDCP to the needs of Today Let us take the experience that we have had in the DDCP to heart and relate it to what we have to do to bring about growth and prosperity. Let me hope that the same force that defeated the ruthless LTTE that held sway over approximately one third of Sri Lanka for two decades and held the entire nation at ransom- with suicide bombings, can be unleashed to achieve the task of brining about prosperity.

Let us cut off the dead wood off the DDCP and take the elements of success to heart. The Rajapaksa Government in the past three years has already established many programmes including the Gama Neguma which have already achieved success. Let the experiences of the DDCP help the Gama Neguma and other programmes. To get into detail, there is no need to export the waste paper to India and then get it processed into paper and import it back for our use. The DDCP industry in Kotmale was a success in making paper. The Boatyard at Matara was a show piece of the DDCP and it was established in the face of great odds. It took at least a six monthsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ battle with the Ministry of Plan Implementation to obtain approval. . Let us take the experience of establishing the crayon factory at Deniyaya. It all began in a room in the Residency at Matara. In the second month it took over the Science Lab at Rahula College after hours for around another two months. It was established within a month and everything accomplished with six months- to produce Coop Crayons for a tenth of the islandƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s requirements. Let us look at what was done to get farm implements made at Baddegama and several other places. Even today people get their farm implements done at the private smithys at Kotmale and in village smithys because what is imported from China are not suitable and do not last long. There was little leadership for the successes. The Paper manufacture was the brain child of the Assistant Government Agent at Kotmale. The Baddegama success in plantations and farm implements was entirely due to the interest of the Assistant Government Agent. In Marata, it was a team effort of the various officers, who even went to the extent of breaking rules and regulations to achieve development and bring about employment.

On the contrary today at the helm we have President Rajapaksa declaring that the battle for economic development has to be won. Then, the helm held us back.

Let me relate my recent travel experience in Sri Lanka. I saw many mango trees in flower and I am aware that by May there will be a situation of a full blown mango crop. Easily twenty percent will go waste due to damage incurred in plucking. Of the rest the producers get little because the traders who bring it to Colombo for sale will have a mark up of hundred percent profit. It is time that we have a mobile training programme on food processing- how to process the mangoes into juice, and to preserve it for sale, for people in the producing areas- this can be a cooperative organization that can take over the coordination and sale. If we can arrange this we can easily produce all the fruit juice which we today import from countries like Singapore, Australia and the USA. Achieving development requires a myriad decisions of the above type which are relentlessly pursued till success is achieved.

Then comes the question of finance. All the ventures that I have highlighted- the paper- the crayon- the farm implements- the fruit juice- are all short term where the cost of machinery in terms of foreign exchange can be recouped with the savings of foreign exchange made in obviating imports in one year. What about the seed money- these are questions that easily defy development tasks today. I may narrate my experience of establishing the Youth Self Employment Programme in Bangladesh. When I was told that there was no new money I asked for permission to use the current funds spent for the training of youth for the cause of developing a employment creation programme. This was granted. No new staff was allowed. I trained all the Youth Officers in economics to enable them to guide the youths when they commenced their own income generating projects. We created thousands of viable enterprises with no additional funds, by merely redirecting current funds and re deploying officialdom. Today it is a Programme of gigantic stature- making 160,000 self employed every year and upto now over a million have been established in employment.

The Mahinda Chintanaya is the only hope for the people of Sri Lanka in the march to prosperity. The IMF path of looking away from self sufficiency and depending on imports, aimed at keeping the Third World encapsulated in poverty has left all the countries that followed it in ruins, in indebtedness, in poverty and deprivation. I hope the spirit of the Mahinda Chintanaya will triumph though there is an effort to hack it. Left to the international community and the IMF, the Mahinda Chintanaya will end in the dust. Let that not happen.-
Bibliography
Dixon Nilaweera and Peiris, Rural Poverty Alleviation in Sri Lanka, 1983 Karunaratne, Garvin, Alleviating Poverty In India: Can it ever beƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  done?: A Lesson for other Third World Countries in Asian Tribune, 2007-02-15

Karunaratne, Garvin, Non Formal Education Theory and Practice atƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Comilla, The Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development, Comilla,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Bangladesh 1974.

Karunaratne Garvin, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”The Failure of the Community DevelopmentƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Programme of India, in Community Development Journal, April 1976

Garvin Karunaratne & Howard Wagstaff, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Income and Employment from Dairy DevelopmentƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢, in Milk Production in Developing Countries, University of Edinburgh, 1985John Perkins Confessions of an Economic Hitman, 2004