by Garvin Karunaratne, GA Matara half a century ago

Our country, Sri Lanka has had a long history of development programs to provide for low income and incomeless people. The best method of finding incomes for the low waged is by getting them on the ladder to attend to some task which helps them creating incomes and also make the country obviate imports.

The other day I was at Nawala going from shop to shop searching for a step ladder made in Sri Lanka and I could not find any. The shops were full of step ladders of all sizes, but they were all imported from countries like Singapore and Malaysia.

To make a step ladder is an easy task and if we cannot have a plan to make all our step ladders, we are really nuts.

Perhaps we are the only country in the entire world that does not make its own bicycles.

It has so happened that I have been in the forefront of making things in Sri Lanka, I served in the Administrative Service for some seventeen years till 1973..

It may be a good idea for our new leaders to decide that we will not import what we can make in our country. This will save a great deal of foreign exchange.

We can start with step ladders, ladders of all sorts. Stop all imports. There will be a scarcity initially for a few weeks, but we can get activated. Every Divisional Secretary will be charged with implementing one employment creation industry.

My mind travels in nostalgia to an incident that did happen when I served as Deputy Director of Small Industries way back in 1970. Then I happened to be in charge of making allocations of foreign exchange to small industrialists. Kariyawasam the Member of Parliament for Elpitiya met me with a young lad and requested me to give him an allocation of foreign exchange to import small mirrors to enable him to make mirrors for motor vehicles. I immediately called one of my inspectors and told him to inspect and make a recommendation. My inspector fixed up a date for inspection. A few days later the inspector told me that he went to Elpitiya and found that the youth had no factory or even a smithy where he said he made the metal portion of car mirrors. It was a total scam he said. I called Kariyawasam and gave him a piece of my mind for recommending the youth.

Kariyawasam was adamant that the youth was a real worker, who would not feign. The assuarance ended by my fixing an appointment to meet the youth and inspect for myself. Kariyawasam told me to meet the youth near the lorry garage of the Cooperative Union. I was there in time and met the youth carrying a bag of metal on his shoulder. It was really a very heavy bag. I asked the youth to take me to his smithy where he made the metal pieces to fit the mirrors and he walked with me to the garage where the Cooperative Union lorries were generally parked. He laid down his heavy bag full of metal pieces, sat down in a corner, pulled out his metal pieces and as I watched he fitted a jig that was around eighteen inches tall and wide. The jig looked firm. Then he said that he will have to wait till a coop lorry comes in and he can borrow their jack. I yet could not understand what he was going to do, but I was patient as he talked sense and assured me of his intentions. A lorry came in. He looked at the driver and said that the driver would not part with his jack. We waited. Another lorry came in and he ran to the driver and borrowed his jack. He sat down and cut pieces of metal to size, placed it on the jig and using the lorry jack pressed the pieces to shape again and again shoving them in at various angles. . In a few minutes he came up with a metal piece that would take in a mirror. He again sat down and with a file, shore off extra edges and got a metal piece that resembled the metal receptacle of a car mirror. He sat down again and used the file to give it more shape. It was really a marvel- a workman who really did perform something I could never imagine he could. I told him to come to my office the next day when I gave him an allocation to import small mirrors. I rang Kariyawasam and thanked him.

This true story tells us that we can make anything out of metal.

What we have to do is simple,. Stop the import of everything we can make. It is only the present Government of Anura Kumara that can even think of making that decision. If he dares I will be there to ensure a success.

In my days around half a century ago I was charged with creating employment. I was the GA at Matara. I took over the school science lab of Rahula College after school closes and for three months in the evenings experimented on making a crayon. My Planning Officer was a graduate in chemistry and he was my leader. And in two months time we made crayons that bent and were not suitable. My Planning Officer took it to the Chemistry Department of the University of Colombo where he had graduated a year ago in Chemistry to seek expertise but the dons were too busy teaching and chased him away. He lingered for three days beseeching help again and again and came back down hearted, a lost soul. We were not going to take it lying down. We restarted our experiments and I too made it a point to join our officers every evening after work- we laboured till midnight every working day. . In a month of evening experiments we were lucky to find the method of making a sound crayon.

I then decided that it should be a cooperative and collared Sumanapala Dahanayake, the MP for Deniyaya who was the President of the Morawak Korale Coop Union. My officers around ten of them made a home at Morawaka for two weeks when we with Morawaka youths made crayons to fill two rooms, working day and night with Sumane, all of us breaking rest all night., We then got labels printed and pasted , packets were printed and a saleable CoopCrayon emerged.

This was all done by me and I had no Ministry approval. I dared because I knew Dr NM the Finance Minister and I was certain of his support if I was questioned. Sumane and I decided to obtain approval in a peculiar manner. We took the crayons and showed them to the Minister for Industries, Mr Subasinghe who was mesmerized and agreed to open sales. Both of us rushed back to Morawaka and made arrangements for a public meeting adorned by the attendance of the Minister Subasinghe from whose hands the first sale was done. It was easy to market the crayons. The industry was a success.

We had to buy dyes in the open market and that was at black market prices. We were refused an allocation of foreign exchange for importing it by the Small Industries Department. An year earlier I was in that Department and I had the power then to offer an allocation of forex for any industry. Sumane and I then approached the Minister for Imports Mr Illangaratne who started scribbling with the crayons and ordered the Controller of Imports to give us an allocation to import dyes and also ordered that no imports of crayons should be allowed.

Coop Crayon was sold island wide ftrom 1971 to 1973 when the IMF ordered that all production units should be stopped if they were to offer financial assistance and President Jayawardena caved in.

The stalwart officers were my Planning Officer Vetus Fernando and District Land Officer Chandra Silva. The latter has left this World and must be looking at us from somewhere amused at how we now import crayons. However Vetus is somewhere around and if our Government wants this is a task that can be done. Mind you around fifty youths were making crayons day and night from 1971 to 1977 and

Coop lorries moving them in entire Sri Lanka.

This true story may perhaps move our new saviour Anura Kumara Dissanayake to a process of making all we import thereby creating jobs and alleviating poverty.

Once, way back in 1982 I was the Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry of Youth in Bangladesh. Then General Ershard took over Bangladesh in one night. Then Air Vice Marshal Aminul Islam the Minister of Laboutr wanted to abolish the Ministry of Sports where I worked as a Consultant, but he wanted my opinion. I suggested that instead of abolishing the Ministry of Sports he should charge the Ministry of Youth to create youth entrepreneurs. The Secretary to the Treasury, the highest official in Bangladesh objected quoting the fact that a United Nations Programme of Creating Employment at Tangail, Bangladesh miserably failed. I argued with him for two hours, with the Hon Minister a silent listener. Finally the Minister stopped us arguing and ordered me to create a self-employment programme. That programme has grown to make over three million youth entrepreneurs and is a coveted continuing development programme today.

Finally I can assure that a Programme of Enterprise Creation can be implemented in every Divisional Secretary area, making items we import. That will help the economy immensely by avoiding imports and creating employment for thousands.

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph,D. Michigan State University

former Government Agent Matara 1971-73

Commonwealth Fund Advisor to the Ministry of Youth Bangladesh 1983-84

Rajagiriya, Colombo 27 th December 2025

garvin_karunaratne@hotmail.com