Garvin Karunaratne  former GA Matara,

Way back in 1963, as the Assistant Commissioner for Agrarian Services at Anuradhapura I presided over the Kanna Meeting of the KalaWeva-to Anuradhapura Tanks. It was the Yodha Ela that provided water to over a hundred tanks. It was a charged meeting where well over two hundred, were belligerent even about to assault the irrigation officers. The problem was that irrigation water never got to all the tanks in time. In order to solve the problem I suggested that we close all cultivation for one year when the Irrigation Department could put a concrete base for the full length of Yodha Ela. I added that I would find the funds. The farmers looked highly satisfied, but the irrigation engineers looked baffled. There were several irrigation engineers led by a very senior Divisional Engineer. The irrigation engineers were mumbling and did not speak for over ten minutes. By then I had then mastered the use of a theodolite to give levels and thought that my suggestion was the way ahead. Finally the Divisional Irrigation Engineer spoke and said that they would not undertake such a task. I was quick to question Why?” The gradient of the YodhaEla is only 10 to 20 cm in a kilometer, a gradient so miniscule that cannot be laid out in actual practice.” How do you do work now?” I quipped. We take a very small section and give levels, never a long section.”

That reveals the precision to which we did have instruments way back in the Fifth Century.

Let us not forget that The Kashmir chronicle Rajatarangani tells that King Dighadipa wanted irrigation engineers from Sri Lanka in the ninth century”(page 158 of my 2006 book)

TODAY we are begging for dollars on the streets in the whole wide world. A mighty civilization brought to its knees!

Today we are struggling along with millions of our brethern not being able to find three meals a day.

The answer is to build ourselves. It can be done. Let us not build castles in the air. Let us speak out what we once did. It is not on Agriculture, but something phenomenal we ourselves actually did.

Way back in 1971 I served as the Government Agent at Matara. Then the Sirimavo Government came up with the Divisional Development Councils Programme(DDCP)- a new Ministry of Plan Implementation was created overnight and the most eminent economist of the day Professor HAdeS Gunadsekera was head hunted as the Permanent Secretary. Even a helicopter was placed for his travel. At the District level we Government Agents were charged with the work. In my District a few small industries, a dozen agricultural farms were quickly established, involving over a thousand youths. The Ministry was highly satisfied. That programme in seven years offered scientific training to 33,300 youths..

I wanted to do more.

I suggested making sea going boats for fishing. The Ministry was not interested and the Director of Fisheries vehemently disagreed. I had to fight all the way- tooth and nail and it was approved. A boatyard came up overnight on the Nilwala River within a month and work commenced. Some twenty youths made around forty boats a year. It was acclaimed a great success.

I drew up a Plan to Make Water Colours. We then imported it. The Ministry calledfor the opinion of the Industrial Development Board and theyturned it down because none of the ingredients that went into the manufacture were found in my District. My argument that the Japanese could buy cotton from as far as Egypt, take it all the way to Japan, make textiles and sell it back in Egypt did not hold any water.

I suggested growing grass on road verges, on private lands and estates- on neglected land and insisted on a creamerybecause even now, milk cannot find sales. This was thrown out on the grounds that there should be separate land for pastures.

That was all. The Ministry would not approve any more. They told me to make bricks and tiles and I replied that the Private Sector made enough of it at Yatiyana.

It was a stalemate. I had a good team of officers who were interested. I decided to make Crayons. We then imported all crayons. It was allied to water colours but if I asked for approval I was certain that it would not get approval.

My Planning Officer Vetus Fernando was a chemistry grad and I asked him to try to find the method of making crayons. He was willing to try. I had a good team- Wimalaratne the Assistant Government Agent, Chandra a District Land Officer and Daya Paliakkara- all enthusiastic. We agreed to try. I authorized the purchase of ingredients with some rural development funds and we made a few experiments every night at my residency. The experts were the Planning Officer and my wife, a science teacher.. We got nowhere We needed proper equipment. I approached Mr Ariyawamsa the Principal of Rahula College and he readily agreed that we could use the science laboratory of the school after hours.

That science lab was ours from six to midnight everyday- with the two experts trying again and again and we being cheer leaders goading them to continue as we for ever failed to get anywhere. At times we even sang Maname songs to keep up the spirits. In the second month- Vetus got a brainwave to get help from the Professors at the University of Colombo who taught him chemistry. I approved the trip and he took off. On the forth day Vetus turned up, a broken down, dejected man- the professors had refused- they had no time. We all started again at the lab at Rahula. That rejection made us adamant to succeed. Finally in a month we made a perfect crayon. Then I sat with Vetus making small changes in the experiments till the quality was equal to Reeves, the best of the day.

We had won. But now the task of making it cropped up. I could summon Harischandra and give the recipe but we wanted it to be ours- a Cooperative of our own. Finally I summoned Sumanapala Dahanayake. He was then the President of the Morawak Korale Cooperative Unon. Sumane was a hardened fighter- one who like me never takes No for an answer. Sumane was thrilled with the task. We had no authority to use cooperative funds for this experiment. The Government Agent was gazetted as a Deputy Commissioner of Cooperatives for agricultural development. I usurped power and signed a letter authorizing Sumane to use his cooperative funds. I summoned the Assistant Commissioner of Cooperatives at Matara and forbid him to breathe of my decision to his boss, who was known to me because I was certain that he would disapprove my decision.

Sumane purchased all the ingredients and the equipment and found unemployed youths in a day. and cordoned off a few rooms of the Cooperative. We- some five of us moved over to Kotapola the next day ready to stay there for a few weeks. I decided it to be a 24 hour operation making crayons day and night, it was a handmade crayon, like most Chinese products and each crayon stick has to be checked for quality – all under the strict eyes of Vetus and the otherstaff. In a few days things were moving right; Sumane got labels and packets printed and in two weeks time we made crayon in packets to fill two large rooms. We were jubilant.

I was not expected to be setting up a new industry and we were doing everything with the greatest secrecy. I could face censure and punishment but for the sake of Mother Lanka would dare to do anything worthwhile. We had to come to the open. I decided to show the crayons we made to the Minister of Industries and get him to open sales. That would accord legitimacy to our venture. I and Sumane went to meet Mr Subasinghe the Minister of Industries and showed him the crayons. He was so surprised at the quality that he gave a date to come and open sales that weekend itself. We rushed and made arrangements. That great day, when sales were opened saw legitimacy to our Coop Crayon.

The Ministry of Industries denied us a small allocation of dollars to import dyes because we were a cooperative. Two years earlier I happened to be a Deputy Director of Small Industries and then I would have bent the rules to have granted it. In a while we heard that the Controller of Imports was about to authorize imports to a company and we moved in. We convinced the Controller to give us an allocation of dollars from the dollars held for imports. He was a convert but wanted us to get the approval of the Minister as this had never been done earlier. . We moved in and Minister Illangaratne was so moved at the quality of the crayon we produced that he immediately approved an allocation. He shouted in glee that all imports of crayons should be stopped forthwith. He even got me to promise that I will establish a Coop Crayon in Kolonnawa, his electorate.

Coop Crayon was sold in the Matara shops in days and Sumane moved in to Colombo shops too. By the time I left the Administrative Service in April 1973 Coop crayon was sold islandwide. Though we had started Cop Crayon of our own, in utter secrecy, it was finally accepted as a DDCP project and it earned to be the flagship industry of the DDCP, a great honour.

Far later in 1982 I ran into NT Ariyaratne former Deputy Commissioner of Cooperatives and when I said that I last worked as the GA at Matara, he asked me if I knew Coop Crayon. I replied that it was I that started it. Then he said that in 1978 when he served as Deputy Director of Cooperatives, President Jayawardema had summoned him and entrusted him to do a forensic audit of Coop Crayon and find something wrong to punish Sumanapala Dahanayake . He said that he took a team of auditors and audited all the books for four days, and found accounts in perfect order and reported that it was a successful well run industry.

Anyhow the wheels of the IMF steamrolled all commercial ventures of the Government closed in 1978 when we agreed to follow the Structural Adjustment Programme.

Coop Crayon was easily comparable to the Reeves, the best of that day and it is equal in quality to the Crayola Crayons of today. Crayola, based in Pennsylvania USA is sold worldwide today. Crayola makes 3 billion crayons and 600 million colour pencils a year. Is it not sad that Coop Crayon was lost due to political belligerence.

The intrinsic success of Coop Crayon , a sophisticated product tells me that there is nothing we import other than wheat and wheat flour, that we cannot produce or make Coop Crayon was established in three months. We do have the ability to regain that ability and end the economic recession we are in, not to be beggars in the streets of the world,

Garvin Karunaratne

former GA Matara,