{"id":106939,"date":"2020-09-23T15:42:13","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T22:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=106939"},"modified":"2020-09-23T15:42:13","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T22:42:13","slug":"mahawillachchiya-illuk-to-alleviate-poverty-and-also-to-save-foreign-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/23\/mahawillachchiya-illuk-to-alleviate-poverty-and-also-to-save-foreign-exchange\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahawillachchiya Illuk to alleviate poverty and also to save foreign exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne,former G.A. Matara\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

My\ncraze for motoring in the forsaken neglected Sinhala areas where poor\nunequipped buddhist monks struggle to guide  the\npeople  following the dictat of Lord Buddha: Charita Bhikkae\nCharikan Mahajana Hitaya, Sukhaya” took me this time to Sandamal Eliya, five\nmiles before one reaches Tanmtirimale.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n   Sandamal Eliya Temple is run by\nVenerable   Viharegama Sangarakkhita, a pupil of the chief\nmonk  at Tantirimale who was killed by the LTTE cadres.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nhappens very often I think I know the roads where I had often travelled long\nago when I worked in the Sixties in the Anuradhapura District.. I keep\nforgetting that new roads and new junctions have emerged and often get lost.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\ntime I was lost in the Illuk jungles of Mahawilachchiya and Tantirimale. I\nmotored through the dense illuk forest that seemed to have no end. I saw\npatches of illuk everywhere I looked. People had even resorted to burn the\nilluk when it invaded their homes. I was lost for long among illuk jungles.\n When I finally reached the Sandamal Eliya temple I spoke with Ven\nSangarakkhita and he confirmed the fact that the area is full of illuk grass, a\ngrass that cannot be eradicated. Illuk has become a nuisance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then\nit did flash in my mind that the machinery imported toValachenai to make paper\nwas intended to use illuk grass.  What did happen was that illuk\ngrass was consumed fast and the machinery lay idle. Then it was our engineers\nand scientists who for the first time found out that straw could be used for making\npaper. Then the farmers at Hingurakgoda and Polonnaruwa made good money by\nselling lorry loads of straw to the paper mill. I entered the scene at that\ntime. In Agrarian Services to keep the truants and fraudsters in check I\nhappened to be a lone islandwide flying squad and the circuit bungalow of the\nValachenai provided me a night\u2019s rest on many a day. My interests in industrial\ndevelopment made me see the paper factory at work several times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nhas so happened that despite the fact that Mother Nature provided fertile land,\nplenty of rain water and our ancient rulers also provided a sophisticated and\nadvanced irrigation system with canals taking water at a gradient of six inches\nin a mile, a feat that baffles the irrigation experts of today, there is plenty\nof starvation among the people. The otherday I came across a family of three\nliving on two and a half perch house at Bandaranayakepura Rajagiriya, shared\nwith other close relatives all living within the pangs of hunger, where they\nforego lunch with a cup of tea. That is in our capital. Go to the colonies at\nPadaviya and Mahavillachchiya, the situation is far worse. The rains will\nprovide two crops of paddy but the cost of getting machinery to plough and\nharvest is forbiddingy high. Once a portion of the crop is sold for living\nexpenses there are days when there is no money and a vast number of people\nhave  to forgo a meal. Their life remains a true misery. This scene\nof utter poverty has to be eradicated. Today we perhaps have the last chance to\neradicate this, if ever it can be done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nIlluk grass at Mahavillachchiya can come to the rescue if only some engineer\nand scientist can resurrect the paper making with illuk grass. It only needs\nthe import of a small scale paper making machine from India or China. One\ninquiry by me on the internet found a vast range of suppliers of paper making\nsmall factories. It is a simple operation- cutting the illuk into small pieces,\nthen churning it with the addition of a few substances to  pulp and\nthen we can make cardboard or paper. All this is done in a small scale machine\nand the people will find employment and incomes while the country will be able\nto save the foreign exchange now being spent to import paper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nam dead certain that this is some task that can be done. Mind you that the team\nof President Gotabhaya has done wonders in the past few months by getting the\nValachenai Paper Factory functional. That was a factory that was closed and\nneglected for over half a century from  the Eighties till the North\nand the East were liberated from the clutches of the LTTE- a task accomplished\nby no other than President Rajapaksa and his brother Mahinda. For that\nGotabhaya and Mahinda combination, establishing a illuk paper factory will be a\nsimple task. We only require President Gotabhaya to order it done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ntoo can make a contribution- this time in writing a few words- mine is a NATO\ntype- it is No Action Talk Only. But once upon a time  from 1955 to\n1973 I was in a role full of action. As the Government Agent at Matara in 1971\nwhen I was  charged with the task of creating employment I did direct\nmy Planning Officer who was a chemistry graduate to conduct a myriad\nexperiments to find the art of making a crayon. It took three months locked up\nin the science lab at Rahula College Matara, helped by the science teachers.\nThey won the day and found the art of making superb crayons equal to the\nquality of the then best Reeves. Thereafter the Morawak Korale Cooperative\nUnion under Sumanapala Dahanayake the Member of Parliament, in his capacity as\nthe President of the Coop Union, established a crayon factory within three\nweeks and for the next seven years 1971 to 1978 this Coop Crayon was sold\nislandwide. Immediately Coop Crayon got going we secured a small allocation of\nforeign aid to import dyes, from the Controller of Imports, Harry Guneratne and\nwithin minutes of his signing that allocation paper to us he cancelled the\nimport of crayons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nam dead certain that this is a task that can be achieved and look forward to\nsee the day when the Illuk grass will alleviate the poverty in Tantirimale and\nalso help our Motherland in saving foreign exchange.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nlive with the firm hope that this plea will reach our President and Prime\nMinister.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin\nKarunaratne, Ph.D. Michigan State University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author\nof  How\nthe IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programmes of Success, Godages, 2006 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\nthe IMF Sabotaged Third World Development, Kindle\/Godages, 2017 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

garvin_karunaratne @ hotmail.com 24092020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne,former G.A. Matara\u00a0 My craze for motoring in the forsaken neglected Sinhala areas where poor unequipped buddhist monks struggle to guide  the people  following the dictat of Lord Buddha: Charita Bhikkae Charikan Mahajana Hitaya, Sukhaya” took me this time to Sandamal Eliya, five miles before one reaches Tanmtirimale.   The    Sandamal Eliya Temple is run by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106939","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=106939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}