By Buddhisiri Dharmapriya Courtesy Ceylon Today

Like many other countries in the world, Sri Lanka was also put on a lockdown due to COVID-19.

On 12 March, the airport was closed and the Western Province, which is the heart of economic activities in the country, was also subjected to lockdown. Social life was fully paralysed. The primary focus of the Government was to save the lives of the people from the coronavirus. The next most serious challenge was to restore social life. 

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa established a task force under former Minister Basil Rajapaksa to provide essential services and to restore normalcy.

The society is unaware of the way the task force acted to overcome the challenge and the difficulties they faced. This article aims at exploring this special operation during the corona time.

Modern Sri Lanka did not have prior experience on a similar global pandemic. Positively responding to the situation, the President appointed a task force. As a precautionary measure, curfew was imposed. However, the complete lockdown paralysed the economy. Production factories, distribution networks, retail markets and all the service centres were closed. Social mechanisms abruptly halted. People had no place to buy essential goods and services.

Government had to shoulder the burden of safeguarding the lives of the people of the country. The Presidential Task Force was able to manage the situation, step by step, within two weeks giving solutions to many unforseen problems.

We identified three major factors the task force on essential services had focused. The Government strategy was aiming at three kinds of members of the society. One section had money in their hands but could not purchase essentials. Some had money in banks but could not withdraw them. The third group had neither money nor  a way to buy essentials. The task force had to address all these issues.

Therefore, the first step was to make way for the people who had money in their hands to buy essentials. Super markets were opened and a distribution networks were established

Mobile teller machines and cash delivery systems were introduced for the benefit of the people who wanted to withdraw money from their bank accounts.

The supermarkets that handled door do door delivery in urban settings were not sufficient to cater the needs of the people in every part of the island. Therefore, a system was established for distribution of goods by delivery vehicles.

The administrative network, comprising District Secretaries, Divisional Secretaries, Gramaseva officers and Samurdhi officers were deployed to distribute food and other essential items directly or via economic centres. The reports on the available and non-available resources in districts were summoned from the administrative officers. 

Those reports were based on distribution and delivery. Economic centres were opened and the surplus production in districts was sent there. The necessary commodities were acquired from the economic centres directly. The Divisional Secretaries were given powers to carry out necessary buying and selling.

The small vendors were allowed to purchase items through this network and sell them door to door in delivery vehicles. The intermediary traders also started their wholesale operations. It was a complicated network although it appeared simple.

By then, almost all the hotels, restaurants and cafeterias had been closed. However, the farmers had cultivated crops especially targeting the New Year season. The Government had to purchase the production from the farmers and distribute it to the people free of charge in some instances. So far, the Government has purchased over two million kilos of vegetable from farmers.

Sri Lanka has 6.5 million families and among the country’s population, 1.5 million are public employees. The Government paid compensation of Rs 5,000 to 7.2 million families. There were delays but all of the needy people received relief.

The trading in the economic centres were paralysed as a result of corona lockdown and it was not an unexpected situation for the task force. The committee identified new issues related to production and distribution. New packaging systems were necessary for new ways of distribution. 

Some kind of food processing needed to be continued and the Government permitted such factories to operate. Meanwhile, there were extraordinary issues like feeding farm animals. The number of problems that needed solutions was massive in number. The Government had to think of the economy anew.

The remittances decreased while the export market collapsed due to corona crisis in export destinations of Sri Lankan products. As local production had collapsed, the Government decided to permit the industries of export products to restart with health precautions to safeguard their orders.

No one knows how long the country or the world has to paddle through the crisis caused by the coronavirus. Experts predict the situation to prevail until a vaccine is introduced. However, people have to overcome the difficulties and maintain social life. 

 About 200 public officials directly participated in decision making of the special task force on essential services. The committee could strentgthen the public service and activate it with new vigour during the crisis. Administrative mechanism from District and Divisional Secretaries upto the Gramaseva officials acted tirelessly to serve people during the the curfew. These are the positive factors identified during the crisis time.

The biggest issue was distribution of medical drugs and this is the first time in world history that a postal service came forward to distribute medicine. The drugs prescrbed to the clinic patients were delivered to their doorstep by the Postal Department. Private pharmacies also distributed medicine to houses. Within two weeks, the burning issues of the people were solved. Some people were happy with the new method of essential commodities delivered to the door step. The crisis led to the invention of new distribution networks.

The Presidential Task Force on Essential Services used state-of-the-art technology. IT experts, software developers, economists, business experts, administrative officers as well as agricultural experts worked in one network.
The distribution of Rs 5,000 compensation caused chaos and now the Government is developing a more professional network for that purpose too.

We must mention that COVID-19 pandemic led to the introduction of many new mechanisms to the society. The trend can be identified as a great leap forward in terms of development.

However, the construction industry came to a standstill with the curfew. Now the Government has opened the path for essential imports in the industry to reactivate the sector.

The country is now at this juncture because of the thoughtful actions taken by the task force on essential services, otherwise the result could have been very bad. The hidden secret behind this success is the freedom of decision making provided to the committee and the relevant authorities. The officials who were previously afraid of signing a document boldly acted trusting the leadership.

The public service today is the same that prevailed before the crisis. No magic was performed but a new trust was built up. Many public officials used to work online. Meetings were held remotely using online apps. New systems as well as new behaviours were introduced.

The President’s task force on essential services has now concluded its responsibility. Now it will guide rebuilding Sri Lanka under the guidance of chairman Basil Rajapaksa. The task force on rebuilding the economy comprises a large number of human resources from both public and private sectors. 

They are assessing the situation of the country and the causes for the economic downturn. Programmes will be designed to rehabilitate each sector of the economy. The Government will provide the necessary assistance while the contribution expected from the private sector is being evaluated.

The task force is now studying about the ways of sustaining and reinventing the markets for Sri Lanka’s exports. New plans will soon be launched systematically and the vision of prosperity of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be underway surely and steadily.