{"id":105353,"date":"2020-08-10T23:30:37","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T05:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105353"},"modified":"2020-08-10T03:42:49","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T10:42:49","slug":"the-concept-of-mega-cities-need-including-five-cities-with-further-expanding-and-dynamic-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/10\/the-concept-of-mega-cities-need-including-five-cities-with-further-expanding-and-dynamic-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"THE CONCEPT OF MEGA CITIES: NEED INCLUDING FIVE CITIES WITH FURTHER EXPANDING AND DYNAMIC PLANNING"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Mr.\nGotabaya Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka stated at the final rally of the\nelection, held in Hambantota that the government of that he will form, has a\nplan to develop four Mega Commercial Cities, Colombo, Jaffna, Trincomalee, and\nHambantota. This concept needs expanding to five cities including the North\nWestern Province, where is the best area to attract investment for tourism,\nmanufacturing, and agriculture development. Later the project could be expanded\nto more cities such as Anuradhapura, Sothern Province, (Matara and Galle),\nPolonnaruva, and Sabaragamuwa (Ratnapura), and Central Province (Kandy).  If it leaves out Colombo, other cities have\nland for infrastructure development, especially for a network of roads\nconnecting the entire country, Electric light rail systems, and development of\nwater reserves for agriculture, controlling floods and reserving excess water,\nand hydropower generation within the area without depending on other areas. The\nsignificance of the project would be it will ignore the federalism and uniting\nthe country integrating economic development. This system could be broadly\ndefined as economic federalism and political and administrative unitary system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npopulation of the country has distributed in cities (domains) containing ethnic\ndiversities, despite the expected ethnic integration, there is an ability to\nmixing ethnic groups within the areas (domains). When five areas plan for\ndevelopment Sri Lanka could be easily removed ethnic and religious issues, and\nthe country can be developed as an integrated community or a nation called Sri\nLankans.  Politically, the implementation\nof the concept will eliminate small political parties that are primarily based\non ethnicities such as Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala and nastic political\nphilosophies such as JVP and Marxists, integrating all into one nation, which\nwill support the country for an integrated nation, and one law for all ethnic\ncommunities with a strong cultural design. This process will remove personal\nlaws such as Thesawalamai, Muslim, Kandyan, Mukkuwa, Buddhist Vihara, and\nProperty laws. One criminal, civil, and administration laws will be applied to\nSri Lankans as well as people living in the country from other countries.  This was been the difficult and gigantic task\nsince independence in 1948. The political administration of the reign of Kings\nand Queens in history succeed one law for all and was able to maintain unity\nwith one nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nconcept of Mega Cities (domains) began after 1978, and the World Bank granted a\nsmall volume of funds for an integrated district development projects, but the\nproject was unsuccessful mainly due to LTTE terrorists, JVP terrorists, and the\napprehension politics of the ruling political movement. The project was purely\nfocused on infrastructure development and to introduce information technology\nthrough education. The computer lab given to Southern people was destroyed by\nJVP terrorists. The actions to eliminate terrorism had been accomplished by the\nRajapaksa regime, however, the yahapalana politics embarked after 2015 worked\nagainst the uniting Sri Lanka, and aimed to create a psychological condition of\npeople that abases traditional values and cultural accoutres of Sri Lankan\nsociety. The result of the unity of reactionaries in international politics and\ndomestic agents of international reactionaries, who were enjoying with bones and\nsecret grants as believed by the mass community in Sri Lanka, was temporarily\nindisposed the expected development. People have been stimulated by the victory\nof Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npresidential election in 2019 and the general election in 2020 seem, have\neliminated reactionary forces and now people in Sri Lanka have a Herculean\nopportunity to unite the country and indoctrinate projects for economic and\nsocial development that is the desires of people. The effort of uniting the\ncountry should not be a political game and a genuine effort to develop the\ncountry with the unity of ethnic and religious communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nconcept of Mega Cities would be a cradle to national unity and redistribution\nof the population that has been prime gist to create ethnic, social, and\nreligious issues in the country.  This\nidea can be further interpreted that the nature of population distribution\nprocured a ground for emerging and growing fertile land to grow ethnic, social,\nand religious issues, and the redistribution of the current population would be\nthe point that should break the vicious circle of poverty and the cultural,\nethnic, and religious enthralment of the country. The development and\ninvestments in various economic development-related projects will redistribute\nthe population creating a new equation of population configuration if the\nMega-Cities project will felicitous in the implementation process with massive\njob creation. The proposed project should not be relegated to the fate incurred\nto the district development project in 1978.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nproposed mega-cities (domains) project should absorb excess population from the\nWestern, North-Western, Southern, and the central provinces to the Northern and\nEastern provinces through the employment of people. This means when investment\nprojects created with more employment opportunities people will come to the\nNorth and East cities and reside with families supporting the new equation of\npopulation distribution.  Although the current\npopulation apportionment seems or a reason to promote distorted racial\nattitudes of ethnic communities if the economic prosperity of people in the\narea and migrants from other provinces with the process of Mega-Cities\ndevelopment, new developments would eradicate the negative feeling of people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nessential requirement to succeed in the aim of population redistribution will\nrelate to education expansion providing three languages teaching in schools and\ngiving more opportunities for kids to participate in a variety of education\nsuch as TVET, medical, engineering, information technology, and other areas.  The current education policy has, directly,\nand indirectly supported the division of communities on ethnic, religious,\ncaste basis, and poor kids in North and East provinces have discouraged\nparticipating in language learning and skills learning.  The foundation political parties in North and\nEast have used the current education distribution to stick people to their\npolitical parties and to promote ethnic and religious hate.  Providing equal education opportunities to\nkids would eliminate the vicious thinking or attitudes of all ethnic\ncommunities, Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim, and support and brace the community\ntogether. The new policy promotes inter-marriages and creates a new generation.\n  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\npass pupil associations in Colombo and schools in other cities might show\nopposition to the new policy, and many members of the pass pupil associations\nare politically heavy hands of all political parties that will work directly or\nindirectly against the policy of educating three languages in rural schools and\nproviding medical, engineering, IT and TVET in rural schools.  Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president of Sri\nLanka needs to understand these disguise reactions and the point that people\nhave elected him to create a new society. Average people like to unite and\nintegrate into the new education policy, they like to gain abilities to\nconverse in three languages and mix through intermarriages. In Colombo and\nprovincial towns Schools merging or acquisitions need to create synergy in\nschool administration and to allow resources in schools to distribute and use\nof all students. If we look at Kotahena (Colombo 13) there are many schools\nwhich divided on religious, ethnic, and language basis, and merging these\nschools to a few coeducation units the new policy would save resources and\nexpand quality and equity in education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhave written many articles on the need for balanced growth in the country.  The concept of balanced growth had been a\npopular theoretical idea of the world since the ideologies of classical\neconomists. Many developed countries have been able to allocate resources to\ncountry areas and achieve the concept of balanced growth giving justice to\nrural people.  It can be seen the mean\nearning of a person in rural and urban is closer and there is no feeling that\nurban people and rural people have divided. The concept of balanced growth has\nbeen ignored in many countries, and investments and markets have networked to\nurban areas. A significant reason for the inequalities in developing countries has\nbeen contributed by the attitudes of policy-makers.  Similar attitudes have \/had UNP policy-makers\nand the new government of Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa must focus to achieve balanced\ngrowth. Regional people in wide Sri Lanka voted for Sri Lanka Podu Jana\nPeramuna in the presidential election 2019 and the general election 2020 with\nhope achieving justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New\nmega-cities project should distribute investments in the city area and except\nColombo city, all other cities could distribute investment throughout the area\nas one unit, and in history, Sri Lanka operated as integrated mega-cities such\nas Ruhuna, Pihiti, and Maya, there were no ethnic or religious issues in\nhistory. Inter-cities relationship should be maintained with a good\ninput-output plan or an inter-industrial plan. The Inter-industrial plan\nsupports for the production-based economy that generates employment\nopportunities for people in the area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nCOVID pandemic has created labour force related problems in developed countries\nand there will be a massive demand for educated and skilled migrants as many\nskilled people have become unemployed, who have less potential for reemployment,\nand developed countries would look for migrants with knowledge (qualified) and\nskilled. Future potential for skilled labour in developed and the Middle East\ncountries would be higher and a considerable volume of qualified people will\nleave Sri Lanka during the coming decade. The other vital point is Middle East countries\nmust offer high salaries to attract labour competing with developed countries\nand to successfully attract knowledged and skilled labour. The Middle East\ncountries must offer higher wages but can those countries do it with heavily\ndependent economies on petroleum products. \nThis economic environment will challenge Sri Lanka because the labour\nforces of the mega-cities attempt to leave for green pastures in other\ncountries. It would be a giant problem for Sri Lanka and the education reforms\nshould be accelerated to provide quality technical and vocational education and\ntraining.  If it works well more foreign\nexchange will inward and the foreign reserves could be increase to the US $ 20\nbillion within six years.      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka stated at the final rally of the election, held in Hambantota that the government of that he will form, has a plan to develop four Mega Commercial Cities, Colombo, Jaffna, Trincomalee, and Hambantota. This concept needs expanding to five cities including the North Western […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}