{"id":117658,"date":"2021-08-30T17:48:31","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T00:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=117658"},"modified":"2021-08-30T17:48:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T00:48:31","slug":"susil-siriwardena-a-pioneer-development-administrator-no-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/08\/30\/susil-siriwardena-a-pioneer-development-administrator-no-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Susil Siriwardena, a Pioneer Development Administrator no more."},"content":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne, Former G.A.Matara 1971-73.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

I must thank Tisuri\nWanniaratchi for her note on Susil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susil stood up for what is right for the masses. He contributed\nheavily for the Janasaviya and Gam Udawa of President Premadasa. It was\nunfortunate  that President\nPremadasa  did not live long to enable\nJanasaviya to flower to become a major programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I knew Susil when he was a graduate teacher at Anuradhapura\nCentral where my wife Bimba too taught. That was way back in 1962. With his\nuniversity qualification from Oxford and his connections with the leaders in\nthe country he could have  easily found\nemployment in many a development institution in Colombo in a plush job at a\nhigh salary, but he wanted to be with the people and chose the path to teach at\nAnuradhapura Central. With his wealth he could have easily led a luxurious life\nat Anuradhapura but he chose to be with the teachers and students a life in the\nbasic staff quarters at the Central.School. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He often visited us and had dinner with us on many a day. In many\ndiscussions we had it was clear that he would someday shine, which he did when\nhe contributed heavily for Janasaviya under President Premadasa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is very special about Janasaviya is that it contained  a definite \nelement of vocational training, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my words\u201d   The\nJanasaviya as well as the Samurdhi are both hand outs that have not served to\nrejuvenate the rural economy. Janasaviya had grand plans  to provide vocational training to the\nreceipients but this did not take off the ground.”(From: How the IMF\nRuined Sri Lanka & Alternative Programmes of Success.(Godages, 2006) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I remember right the grant in Janasaviys was for only two years\nand the receipient had to be properly trained in the second year.   I came to know the Janasaviya, when it so\nhappened that the Governor of the Central Province Mr Imbulana got me to draft\na Poverty Alleviation Programme for the Central Province. That was in July\n1993, when in my two weeks\u2019 fact finding I came to know that Janasaviya did\nprovide vocational training. The concept of Janasaviya stands to the credit of\nSusil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It so happened that I lost touch with Susil after I left\nAnuradhapura in 1964, but he had ideas of serving our Motherland in a distinct\nmanner that came out in our discussions. \nIt was clear that Susil will make a major contribution to our country\nand I am happy to note from Trisuri\u2019s paper that Susil played a mjor role.in\nthe development field.  I left the\nAdministrratiuve Service in 1973.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strangely we thought seriously of meeting Susil in December 2020\nwhen we were in Colombo. We cherished to meet him after a gap of over five\ndecades.  However  it so happened that I failed to locate him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us administrators become followers  and fail to contribute to the Motherland. Not\nso Susil. He  did contribute heavily. .\nLet me hope that we will meet again in this long journey  of Sansara to contribute to the  Motherland we love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former G.A.Matara 1971-73.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29 th  September 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne, Former G.A.Matara 1971-73. I must thank Tisuri Wanniaratchi for her note on Susil.  Susil stood up for what is right for the masses. He contributed heavily for the Janasaviya and Gam Udawa of President Premadasa. It was unfortunate  that President Premadasa  did not live long to enable Janasaviya to flower to become a […]<\/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-117658","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\/117658","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=117658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}