Mother Nature to our Rescue in this hour of distress
Posted on March 22nd, 2026
by Garvin Karunaratne
Though our resplendent island is blessed with ample water casading over valley and dale and wind blowing me off on my many minor irrigation inspections in the Districts of Kegalla, Nuw
ara Eliya and Kandy the coal and oil lobby has been so strong, that the attempt by a few of us to emphasize the power that lies in water and wind has taken us nowhere.
I have been among the few administrators who have written on the power that lies in the wind and water.
It is now the time to write again hoping that the present situation of hostility between the USA and Iran which has set the price of oil beyond our reach, will make some one in authority to listen to my true story.
To deal with the Power of Water , a number of our old tea estates used the power of water to run their tea processing machines. My own uncle owned Janet Valley Estate in Gampola and used the power of water from a small stream to run his tea factory. Some Seventy years ago I tried to convince him that what he had to do to get more power was to marshall the water in the stream to provide more power. I was no engineer, only an administrator and I failed to convince him. That attempt of mine was when I served in Nuwara Eliya in the mid Fifties. The Electicity Board convinced him and he gave up using water for power and instead turned to the Electricity Board.
Some eight years later I met my uncle again and he was then manhandled by the Electricity Board by shooting up the price of the power they supplied and my uncle told me that he should have listened to me.
We have now gone climes- myself moving out of Sri Lanka living in London, the USA, Bangladesh and in those years my uncle has passed away and now a foreign man from Europe had leased out the tea factory and is marshalling the water to provide more power, and I have not been there for some three years and I am certain that this foreign leaseholder is now providing electricity from that stream and is selling the power to people, and mind you the profit so derived from the Gampola water is fritted away to a bank overseas- somewhere in Europe.
Our Gampola water had become dollars and is sent abroad as earnings.
Sri Lanka is the net user. This is a true story.
My estimate is that the USA will bully Iran and they will fight for long and had I been in my shoes as an administrator I could have convinced the authorities to get down to make electricity from water and use that power instead of using coal and oil.
Though old if called upon, I can spearhead to commence a programme to make power from water and hand it over in a year to our young administrators to continue.
The Youth Self Employment Programme I established in Bangladesh in 1982, where I worked for two years as a Consultant has grown strong and has guided millions to be self employed. This Programme is now being administered by members of the Bangladesh Administrative Service.
Garvin Karunaratne
formerly of the Admnistrative Service,last working as the GA at Matara