{"id":112622,"date":"2021-03-14T17:03:24","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T00:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112622"},"modified":"2021-03-14T17:03:24","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T00:03:24","slug":"the-general-election-of-1956-part-3b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/14\/the-general-election-of-1956-part-3b\/","title":{"rendered":"THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1956 Part 3B"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

SOCIAL LEGISLATION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bandaranaike\u2018s\ngovernment made   a lasting contribution\nto the social legislation of the country, specially Labour legislation.  The MEP government set up Conciliation\nBoards   , Labour tribunals, The Employees Provident Fund and passed the Prevention\nof Social Disabilities Act, No. 21 of 1957.These laws and bodies are now taken for granted.  The pioneer role of the MEP is forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MEP government set up Conciliation Boards<\/strong>   to  \nfacilitate amicable settlement of disputes. The\nConciliation Boards Act No. 10 of 1958\nwas passed amidst opposition from vested interest. Conciliation Boards were to operate\nin all villages. Boards were empowered to settle dispute of a civil nature,\nespecially those which related to moveable property. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Act provided for mandatory community level\nresolution of minor disputes by impartial conciliators. The objective of the\nAct was to make available to disputants a much more accessible, less expensive,\nspeedy and participatory dispute management process.  They did a tremendous service by settling the\ndisputes at village level and preventing lengthy litigation in courts, said WTA\nLeslie Fernando.  Conciliation Boards\noperated from 1958- 1977. They were\nrepealed in 1977. The Mediation Boards Act no 72 of 1988 is nothing but a\ncontinuation of the Conciliation Boards, said Fernando. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour Tribunals<\/strong> were set up on 2.5.1959.  The Industrial\nDisputes Act 3 of 1950 had   provided\nonly for compulsory arbitration at union level. \nA workman who was unfairly terminated had nowhere to go, to seek a\nremedy. It was to fill this lacuna that Labour Tribunals  were created through Act\nno 62 of 1957.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until these tribunals were set up,\na worker had to go to the civil courts when he was wrongly dismissed. This was\nbeyond the worker\u2019s means. With the\ncreation of Labour tribunals, the workman with a grievance now had a place to\ngo to. The Labour Tribunals provided speedier justice than the courts.  If he\nwished a workman could get a non lawyer to appear for him in the Labour\nTribunal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Employees Provident Fund<\/strong> (EPF) was established under the Act No. 15 of\n1958 and is currently the largest Social Security Scheme in Sri Lanka. It had\nan asset base of Rs. 2,289 billion in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Prevention\nof Social Disabilities Act, No. 21 of 1957<\/strong> prohibited discrimination on the\nbasis of caste. The Act permitted all persons to\nenter and be served at, any public hotel, rest house,\neating house, and restaurant. Obtaining or using water from any public well,\nspring, water-pipe or any other source of supply of water to the public.\nEntering, or obtaining the service provided at a public hairdressing saloon or\nlaundry. Entering any public cemetery and attending or taking part in any\nburial or cremation. No person should be prevented from entering and\nworshipping in any temple which belongs to that person\u2019s religion. This was a boon to\nthe low caste groups in Jaffna, who at the time were prevented from entering\ncertain temples  and barber shops. The\nTamil politicians did not like this legislation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NATIONALISATION OF BUS\nCOMPANIES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  MEP had promised to nationalize the bus companies and create a\nState Transport Board.  There were\nseveral large bus companies at the time. South Western Bus Company of Cyril de\nSoyza, operating on the Colombo-Galle route. Silver line bus service   operating in Colombo. Sri Lanka Omnibus Company owned by Jayasena\nMadanayake of Peliyagoda, operated Colombo-Kandy- Gampaha-, Kurunegala run. Panadura Motor Transport Company of Leo\nFernando operating on Panadura- Ratnapura- Wellawaya- Buttala route. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a host of smaller\ncompanies in the outstation. Siri Medura Bus Company ran buses   from Gampaha to Waturugama.  There was the Blue line Company, Green line\ncompany,  Uva Bus company, Madhyama\nLanka,  Kandy Omnibus,  Galle Motor company and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was long standing\ndissatisfaction with the bus service provided by these private companies. There\nwas much public anger over the deplorable service provided and the huge profits\nthat the bus owners were making, which they did not use to improve the service.\nThere was rivalry between the bus owners and brutal fights. Employees were\nbadly treated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The call for nationalization of\nbus service had been there for a long time, but the UNP government was not\nprepared to nationalize. The Bus company owners were all supporters of the UNP.\nThey provided the UNP with funds and also provided gangs for intimidation\nduring elections.  In the 1950s, 27    MPs had interests in the bus companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MEP nationalized the private\nbus service. SWRD wanted the nationalization done in stages, Philip\nGunawardene insisted that it must be done in one go. The Motor Transport\nBill for the nationalization of bus services was presented to the House of\nRepresentatives on September 24, 1957 and passed on October 17, 1957. It was passed without division. Buses were nationalized in 1958. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All road passenger transport services were\ntransferred from private to state ownership and on January 1, 1958 by Transport\nAct No. 48 of 1957. The Ceylon Transport Board (CTB) was created to operate an\nall island bus service.  The CTB\nprovided bus transport for the hitherto inaccessible rural areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 SWRD\nappointed   a senior member of the Civil\nService, Vere de Mel as Chairman, CTB. He was an excellent choice. He handled\nthe takeover expertly, then set up an integrated bus transport system which for\nthe first time catered to   hitherto\ninaccessible parts of the island. CTB also made it possible for passengers to\ntravel to distant  places without having\nto change buses at  several  points, \nnoted Meegama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be observed,  however, that while this may have been good for transport, it\nwas  a \ncalculated hit at the  emerging\nSinhala business man.  The  bus takeover was a severe blow to them and\nmany \u2018bus mudalalis\u2019 never recovered from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TRAIN SERVICES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1956, three new train services, to  Galle, Kandy and Jaffna were introduced by B.D.\nRampala, General Manager of Railways. They were the Udarata Menike (Colombo-\nBadulla), Yal Devi (Colombo – Jaffna) and Ruhunu Kumari (Colombo- Matara). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All  three   trains were launched in April 1956, on the\nsame day. The intention was to   increase\npassenger use of trains and reduce travel time. They operate to this day, with\nmodern changes to both trains and tracks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yal Devi was the first express train in Ceylon. Earlier, the train\njourney to the north took 13 hours. There were 83 stations on this line. . Yal\nDevi did it in  seven  hours Udarata Menike covered a staggering\n62  railway stations and 42 tunnels. ( Continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS SOCIAL LEGISLATION Bandaranaike\u2018s government made   a lasting contribution to the social legislation of the country, specially Labour legislation.  The MEP government set up Conciliation Boards   , Labour tribunals, The Employees Provident Fund and passed the Prevention of Social Disabilities Act, No. 21 of 1957.These laws and bodies are now taken for granted.  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-112622","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\/112622","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=112622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}