{"id":112435,"date":"2021-03-07T16:51:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T23:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112435"},"modified":"2021-03-07T16:51:15","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T23:51:15","slug":"the-general-election-of-1956-part-4d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/07\/the-general-election-of-1956-part-4d\/","title":{"rendered":"THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1956 Part 4D"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Philip Gunawardene    was the creator of the Multipurpose Cooperatives Society<\/strong>. Until\n1956, the cooperatives had been single purpose ones. There were separate cooperatives for\nfood distribution, for savings and loan disbursement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 There were about   10,500 of cooperatives   and they were of 70 different types. Philip\ndecided to weld them into one organization, the Multipurpose Cooperative Society.  By 1958 a fair number of Multipurpose\nCooperatives were formed, others were converted. There was terrific enthusiasm\non the part of the public, said Meegama <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The village level Multi-purpose Cooperative was a small unit and it would have to\ndepend on the private sector for its stock. Therefore Multipurpose\nCooperatives were combined into unions. \neach Union of multipurpose Cooperative\nhad a fleet of lorries to transport goods and distribute them to the to the\nindividual multipurpose cooperatives This Union of Multipurpose Cooperatives played a major role in the development\nof the area  long  after Philip Gunawardene had left the  Ministry, said Garvin Karunaratne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S. Piyasena, who had contested under MEP in\nthe 1960 election, said that Philip\u2019s greatest achievement was not the Paddy\nLands Act, but the creation of the Multi-purpose cooperative society. Those\ndays, where Gunasinghepura is today, you could see ranks upon ranks of stalls\nwith cheap vegetables and other food items, brought there from all over the\nisland by rows of lorries emblazoned with the insignia of the Multi-Purpose\nCo-operatives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

later he tried to reform the fisheries on the\nsame lines of cooperatives to enable the fishermen to get some of the profits\nthat were going to the middleman, the fish mudalali, but vested interest\nprevented this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip took over the Cooperative Wholesale Establishment<\/strong>.\nCWE was selling a bare minimum of items at that time.  the public had to go to the private trader\nfor the rest. Philip gave CWE trading rights and monopolies in respect of\nseveral items of food stuffs.  Philip\nwanted to make the CWE the sole importer of all essential food stuff.   He appointed a new Board of directors and\nthe CWE had shown a profit in 1956 itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip found that there were five\nfirms which imported fertilizer, Colombo Commercial, Baur, Shaw Wallace,\nMoosajee and two other small firms. They have a virtual monopoly. CCC, Baur and\nShaw Wallace work together. The government subsidizes 50% of the cost to the\npaddy cultivator and also pays out enormous amounts for fertilizer for coconut,\nrubber and paddy.  All these go to the\nimporting firms. We are their mercy said Philip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip wanted to make the CWE the\nsole importer of fertilizer. The idea was opposed, by many including the Minister\nfor Commerce.  Cabinet refused to give approval for\nCWE to import fertilizer.Even the Prime Minister had objected to the state importing\nfertilizers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip then suggested creating a\nseparate state organization for the purpose. It would be able to sell\nfertilizer cheaper. And eliminate the high profits the   three foreign firms were making   since they had a monopoly on it.  Nothing came of this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marketing\nDepartment<\/strong> under Philip had four services, a Vegetable Marketing Scheme, a\nFruit Cannery, a Bakery and Retail Fair Price Shops in all cities. I can state that The Marketing Department\nfunctioned very effectively under Hon. Philip  Gunawardena said  Garvin\nKarunaratne  I was Assistant Commissioner\nof Agriculture Marketing at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vegetable and Fruit Marketing Scheme,\nimplemented by the Marketing Department was something unique to Sri Lanka,\nsaid Garvin. Its function was twofold- to provide a high price to the\nproducer to encourage production as well as sell to the consumer at cheap\nrates, a scheme that kept inflation of local produce in check, said\nGarvin.  This was a Scheme begun during the days of World War II. Under\nPhilip, this mechanism had to work perfectly.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tripoli Market was the Headquarters of the\nVegetable and Fruit Marketing Scheme. Garvin, together with another officer\nwere in charge in 1956. Tripoli Market\nwas   at that time, in a large hanger in\nthe Colombo Goods shed.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We bought vegetable and fruit from producers\nat the producer\u2019s fairs all over the island. This controlled the prices at\nwhich the traders purchased vegetables. we then fixed a selling price higher\nthan the   purchase price and kept ten to fifteen percent mark up to\ncover transport and handling.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

we sold vegetables at this price at 50 well\nstocked small retail shops in Colombo. the traders all fell in line. With vegetables   offered at low prices at our retail shops no\none would buy from other  traders at a\nhigher price  in this way we controlled\nthe prices  very effectively  but unofficially.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did not use middlemen. We handled the goods\nfrom the producer to the consumer.  there\nwere Purchasing Units in all the producer areas. Marketing Department had a\nPurchasing Unit present at every major vegetable fair. These Units purchased\nvegetables at a higher price than what the private trader paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The\npurchasing price was decided at Tripoli Market which had 24 hour\nsurveillance on the availability of produce and the prevalent wholesale prices\nat the Colombo Wholesale Market.  Three to four officers were on duty\nthere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vegetables purchased at the Fairs were\nsent to Tripoli Market overnight by rail and lorry and by ten in the morning\nthe vegetables had to be distributed to the retail units in all corners of the\ncity. We had a staff with a dozen\nlorries always on the move in the City. The Department with over a hundred\nlorries, purchased only around ten percent of the produce, but that was\nsufficient to unofficially control the prices.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a staff of Marketing Officers in every\nproducing area and Assistant Commissioners were always on the move. The\nAssistant Commissioners contacted major producers and advised them on what\nvarieties were required for the market in Colombo. This was done through the\nDivisional Revenue Officers as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Ratnapura where I worked in 1956, on\nfour days in the week, I was driving on the tortuous roads to the Fairs at\nEmbilipitiya, Colombage Ara, and Godakawela. I had to be there before six in\nthe morning to ensure that my staff of Marketing Officers made purchases. The\nvegetables were packed and sent to Tripoli Market overnight. We had to relay\nthe prices at which traders purchased at the Fairs to Tripoli Market and daily\ndiscuss prices.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marketing Department Cannery was probably set\nup by Philip, for Garvin says, The Cannery being established, the Department\noffered floor prices for Red Pumpkin, Ash Pumpkin and Pineapple, turning them\ninto Golden Melon Jam, Silver Melon Jam and Juice. This stopped imports from\nAustralia and saved our foreign exchange.  A Floor price meant that we\npurchased everything offered by the producer. the officer in charge of the Canning\nFactory went often to Europe to find markets for pineapples and we built up an\nexport market.  (continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS Philip Gunawardene    was the creator of the Multipurpose Cooperatives Society. Until 1956, the cooperatives had been single purpose ones. There were separate cooperatives for food distribution, for savings and loan disbursement.  There were about   10,500 of cooperatives   and they were of 70 different types. Philip decided to weld them into one organization, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112435","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=112435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}