by Garvin Karunaratne

Is it not sad that the current Government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has not come up with a new Programme for development, to allay poverty. It is true that we have been assailed by Mother Nature- the Ditwah that devastated our country recently. However any problem has to be surmounted.

My words are clear,

Dear sir, Please get going with a new programme to tackle poverty, bring incomes to the people, creating entrepreneurs. Such an innovative programme will be a feather in your cap, some day.

I served as the Government Agent at Matara some fifty years ago. The then Government of Prime Minister Sirimavo ordered the foremost economist of the day, Professor HAdeS Gunasekera to establish a new Programme to create employment. A new Ministry was created in days and Professor Gunasekera was appointed the Permanent Secretary, He was even provided a helicopter for his travel. I yet can remember ducking to meet him at his helicopter as a soldier had been once decapitated by the helicopter blades.

I was only a Government Agent in charge of the Matara District, but yet me tell you what I did with my men, Vetus Fernando a raw chemistry graduate posted as the Planning Officer, some twenty Development Assistants- graduates who did not have a day’s experience and all the workers at the Matara Katcheri, who of course had work to do, work they had done for long.

We got going with establishing Divisional Councils and got ideas from them and they talked more nonsense.

Matara had a sea coast and a boatyard making sea going 40 foot boats with an inboard motor was planned and some lack of rupees was allocated, a boatyard was established, the machinery purchased and Ran Ariyadasa my Divisional Secretary went chopping all the trees he could find converting them to boats and selling them to Fishing Cooperatives- a job well done. The Ministry also funded a few sewing and small craft industries and the big wigs were very happy, commending me and that was all.

I and my men provided other suggestions but the Ministry was fully satisfied with the work done and would not fund any more.

My men, battle hardened officers District Land Officers, Assistant Government Agents were full of ideas but the Ministry turned a deaf ear. They were highly satisfied with the Boatyard, some small craft industries and small farms established here and there. We suggested a Creamery and we said we will rear milking cattle and Deniyaya was an ideal climate, but the Ministry would not approve.

We oft clashed, our suggestions creating problems.

The craze in me wanted to do something phenomenal and commandeered the science lab of Rahula College in the evening from six to midnight, when we officers used the science equipment to do experiments at making something we imported. That was the criteria.

The Planning officer Vetus Fernando a grad in chemistry ,the science teachers at Rahula and the rest all unqualified nonentities who knew nothing in industries were all burning the mid night oil for endless experiments from six to midnight every day, after a gruelling days work at office.

We tried everything we could think of and finally came in two months of experiments to make crayons which were not of suitable texture for sale.

Then my Planning Officer the chemistry grad got the bright idea of obtaining expertise from his professors- those that taught him chemistry at the portals of the University. I authorized him funds for travel and he took off fully enthusiastic. In three days he emerged a broken down man. He had gone behind all his lecturers and the professor of chemistry and he was turned away- they were too busy with teaching.

We were not to take it lying down and recommenced our experiments from six to midnight. In another month of experiments we came across the reciepie to make a good crayon. We fine tuned it to be equal to Reeves the best of the day.

Then the major question of how to produce crayons came up. One officer suggested of giving the recipe to Harischandra and we shouted at him.

I decided that it should be a Cooperative and decided on the Morawaka Korale Cooperativs, as it was led by Sumanapala Dahanayake, the MP for Deniyaya, a man who could be trusted. Sunamanpala was summoned and told to produce crayons. He readily agreed.

Then the problem was to find funds. The Coop Unions rolled money but I had no authority to use that money to create an industry. The GA was gazetted a Deputy Commissioner for Cooperatives for the purpose of directing the paddy cultivation programme. I usurped authority from that gazette notification and authorized him to use cooperative funds and establish a crayon factory.

The Assistant Commissioner for Cooperatives in Matara District was summoned and told of this decision and also told to keep the decision to use coop funds to establish a crayon factory a secret and not to tell head office. I knew the Commissioner for Cooperatives well but also thought that he will never agree to allow me to use coop funds.

Sumanapala was authorized to use coop funds and purchase the ingredients burners and pots and pans and find space at Morawaka Coop Union for that night and the key personnel from Matara- the Upadisapathy Ranjith, Planning Officer Vetus, DLO Chandra Silva, and a few others moved with bag and baggage to Morawaka in the evening. We started operations, gas burners burning the dyes mixed with water and other measured ingredients-non stop day and night, training some twenty youths to make crayons. It was a twenty four hour operation. Sumanapale went somewhere and got packets printed and two rooms were filled with packets of crayons.

Next we were worried as to how to sell what we made in an unauthorized manner. Sumanapala and I decided to take the crayons we made, show them to some Ministers. We showed the crayons to the Minister for Industries Mr Subasinghe who was highly taken up and he agreed to, open sales. We hurried back and staged a public meeting where he made the first sale. We then sold the crayons far and wide in Sri Lanka.

We approached Small Industries for a foreign exchange allocation to import dyes. We were refused. We were buying dyes in the open market at high prices.

Two years earlier I was a Deputy Director of Small Industry and would have cherished the idea of a cooperative making anything imported. That problem was surmounted in a peculiar manner.

We showed the crayons to Minister Illangaratne who was so highly taken up that he ordered the Controller of Imports to stop the import of crayons. He even wanted me to set up a crayon factory in his electorate Kolonnawa to which I had to agree.

Coop crayon won the day and was sold in the entire Sri Lanka till 1977, when President Jayawardena ordered all industries established by the earlier government to be stopped. That was actually an order by the IMF which had to be obeyed if we were to get loans from the IMF .

Later on in 1981, when I was working in Bangladesh as a Consultant I met A T, Ariyatne who had once worked as the Commissioner of Cooperatives in Sri Lanka and when I told him that I had been the GA at Matara told me that he was summoned by President JR Jayawardena and told to proceed to Morawaka and somehow find some reason to take action against Sumanapala Dahanayake who was the President of the Morawaka Coop union that made coop crayon. He said that he spent three full days auditing Coop Crayon books and found them in proper order and had to report that Coop Crayon was well run and every book was maintained perfect.

However  the open market being introduced in 1977 saw to it that Coop Crayon was closed down

To our Hon President.

Sir, This is one of the industries that I established in Sri Lanka using the powers of a G.A. Sir, you are today the President of Sri Lanka. Please very kindly consider ordering a programme to make items that we import and thereby create employment for our youth and also save our foreign exchange. It will be ideal to have a successful employment creation industry in every District. .

Sir, please consider to approve such an industry creation  programme to make things we import  though I am in my Nineties, I will be there to assure you that such industries will be successful. This  will also bring you a name for  establishing industries, creating employment and  saving valuable foreign exchange. The creation of a Viable  industry in each District,  will stand you in good stead.  I can assure you of success. 

I will ensure that it will be a great success and this will bring you great credit

Please kindly consider this request. 

Garvin Karunaratne, Ph D. Michigan State University

G.A. Matara 1971-1973

garvin_karunaratne @hotmail.com

21/1/2026