{"id":58119,"date":"2016-08-29T19:54:29","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T01:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=58119"},"modified":"2016-08-29T12:36:50","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T19:36:50","slug":"building-up-our-industries-and-creating-employment-perfume-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/29\/building-up-our-industries-and-creating-employment-perfume-making\/","title":{"rendered":"Building up Our Industries and Creating Employment-\u00a0 Perfume Making"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

On my recent travel to Snowdonia in Wales, I happened to visit the Corris Industrial Unit.\u00a0 What was most interesting was a Mini Distillery using many ingredients, including an array of spices, turning out special alcoholic drinks<\/p>\n

I kept wondering\u00a0 what I could have done if I had known this mini Distillery equipment when I was the Government Agent at Matara, in 1971,\u00a0 when we were charged with creating employment for our youth.\u00a0 Those were the days of the Divisional Development Councils Programme for which Dr N.M.Perera, the Minister for Finance had high hopes of developing employment for the youth.<\/p>\n

Once I was traveling in\u00a0 North India and I was charged with the task of buying some perfumes from Sugandhika in Lucknow. From Lucknow we were due to proceed to Sravasti on pilgrimage and I told our driver to take us to Sugandhika. It was a small sales outlet selling a special variety of perfumes, doted on by Indian damsels. What was most interesting was that the perfumes were all made in India itself. After buying some perfumes, I approached the staff and requested that I may be allowed to see their distillery- where the flowers will be distilled into perfumes. Out came an answer that defied me, theirs was a mini distillery, portable which was taken to the places where flowers were available and at that time the flowers were not in bloom. India has developed its perfume making industries on a grand scale.<\/p>\n

At Corris in Machynlleth,\u00a0 in Wales, I saw the two mini Distillery machines functioning in one large room. Of course they were not making perfumes which would have required more space. But that distillation equipment could have been utilized to make perfumes. It is called the DYFI Distillery, led by Pete Cameron (dyfidistillery.com- telephone 01654761551.)<\/p>\n

I quote from a Report I wrote for the Chief Minister of the Central Province, Hon Mr P.C.Imbulana back in 1993, A Programme for Self Employment Creation & Poverty Alleviation in the Central Province of Sri Lanka\u201d<\/p>\n

A Perfume making Industry can only be established in the Central Province\u00a0 as this is the ideal climate area for planting flowers. In my stay of an year at Nuwara Eliya I got a good income from flowers that grew wild in my garden. After an identification of small scale machinery and a study of its feasibility the plans drawn for local production can also include flowers\u00a0 to be processed into perfumes. This can be established immediately\u00a0 with the flowers offered at Dalada Maligawa\u201d( From\u00a0 How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and\u00a0 Alternative programs of Success,<\/u> (Godages). My Report was accepted by the Chief Minister who immediately commenced implementing it at two Divisional Secretary areas, but the Programme was shelved with the United National Party losing the General Election.<\/p>\n

My find of the machinery for a small scale distillery at Corris in Wales is significant and holds a great deal of hope to establish a perfume industry in Sri Lanka. If I had known of this machinery when I was the Government Agent at Matara I would have commenced a perfume making industry based on the flowers offered at the Matara Bodhi . I could\u00a0 have found employment for easily twenty youths. The plan is extremely feasible and I would urge the Government to take immediate steps to get going with establishing\u00a0 perfume industries.\u00a0 in Kandy, with the flowers offered at the Dalada Maligawa (can easily find employment for fifty or more), at Anuradhapura with flowers offered at Sri Maba Bodhiya and Ryuwanveliueya-( this can find employment for thirty or more).<\/p>\n

Once the perfumes are made the second step will be to encourage people to plant flowers and for a collection arrangement to be made.<\/p>\n

On my world wide travel since leaving the Administrative Service in 1973 I have trailed behind lorry loads of sugar cane and manioc\u00a0 in India and Thailand, lorry loads of flowers in Southern France.\u00a0 Flowers are collected and transported to perfume making factories. France has developed a massive perfume making industry.<\/p>\n

It beats me why we cannot establish a perfume making industry with the flowers offered at various temples. It was just the other day that a Pichha mal ceremony was done at the Sri Maha Bodhiya at Anuradhapura.<\/p>\n

Often one hears that people are caught trying to take away Sandlewood from Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

It needs to be emphatically stated\u00a0 that a perfume making\u00a0 industry cannot be established in a piecemeal manner, with a stray perfume making unit being established. There is an essential infrastructure necessary. Firstly the Government must seriously take steps to curtail the import of perfumes by charging a high tax on all imports but this has to be done after good quality perfumes are made. If Sugandhika can establish a perfume industry in Lucknow without a permanent distillery, working on a make shift temporary factory, we can easily achieve it at two places, in Kandy and Anuradhapura because flowers are available in plenty.<\/p>\n

Secondly the Government must establish a unit to attend to research and guide the factories that make perfumes in the Districts. My mind travels back to my days when I served in Kegalla in 1968 and 1969 and Matara in 1971 and 1973. The Government Agent was held in charge of the Powerlooms in the area and if I remember right there were five Powerlooms in each District and this offered employment to hundreds of youths, This was possible because the Small Industries Department had a Research and Helping Unit at Velona, at Moratuwa to provide the necessary expertise to the Powerlooms all over the island. With one master stroke, the IMF dictate of making us\u00a0 follow the Structural Adjustment Programme in 1977 abolished all public sector effort at employment creation. And with that one decision out went Velona and our Powerlooms. And sad to say with that a country that was self sufficient with fabric and textile manufacture became a\u00a0 country that imported all textiles. No one, then realized\u00a0 that the IMF was playing the sinister\u00a0 role of making all our Third World Countries indebted so that the countries\u00a0 to which we are indebted can call the shots and dictate to us.<\/p>\n

Making perfumes is a far easier industry than the Crayon Factory that we established in Deniyaya in 1971. We did not know how to make crayons, but the craze in me to establish a manufacturing industry from scratch made me direct the Planning staff to conduct experiments. This commenced initially in my Residency and when we required sophisticated equipment we took over the science laboratory at Rahula College from around six P.M. to mid night when our scientists, the Planning Officer in the katcheri, Vetus Fernando, aided by the science teachers did a myriad of experiments for close upon two months till we finalized the art of making crayons. It was easily comparable in quality to Crayola Crayons. The only difference was that each crayon was handmade, like most industries in China. The Minister of Industries Mr Subasinghe was surprised when I showed him a crayon, and readily agreed to preside over the sales commencing ceremony.\u00a0 Mr T.B.Illangaratne the Minister for Trade too was mesmerized by its quality and authorized an allocation of foreign exchange to enable the industry to import essential colouring. He gave that allocation from the funds earmarked for the import of crayons. He had the capacity to understand that\u00a0 our making crayons meant that we can immediately reduce imports- saving valuable foreign exchange.\u00a0 It was a great industry run by the Morawaka Cooperatives under the leadership of Sumanapala Dahanayake, the Member of Parliament who was also the President of the Cooperative Union. This Crayon Industry became the flagship industry of the Divisional Development Councils Programme and the crayons were sold islandwide till 1977, the day when the IMF took control of our country and dictated us to abolish national planning, stop all public sector run industries, abolish the infrastructure already established for development, allow all imports and allow the free use of foreign exchange and dictated us to live on loans, which has paved the path for our country to become indebted.\u00a0 Making the Third World countries indebted was the method by which the Third World countries were subjugated. This is the sad story unfolded in my book: How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

The history of establishing the Crayon Industry has been highlighted to show the difficulty of establishing an industry. The other day I was searching to buy a step ladder\u00a0 at Nawala and found that we make only a small percentage of step ladders. The rest is imported from Thailand and China. A country that cannot make its own step ladders can never establish its own perfume industry. At times I think I am wasting my time writing these ideas of mine.<\/p>\n

If we could have successfully established the Crayon Industry I do not see how we can go wrong with establishing a perfume making industry.<\/p>\n

We only need some foreign exchange to pay for the mini distillery equipment, which can easily be recouped from the sales that will be generated within the very first year.<\/p>\n

Leaving development in the hands of the Private Sector, the recommendation of the IMF, means that we will never develop our industries.\u00a0 The Private Sector aim is to make a fast buck like venturing on establishing Supermarkets. It is the public sector that has to take on the difficult task of establishing import substitution type of industries. Let this fact be engrained into the thinking of our leaders. It is my finding that the aim of the IMF is not the development of our countries. Instead, their task is to restructure\u00a0 our economies to contribute to the economies of the developed countries. It is our Third World economies that run the Developed Economies by sending our foreign exchange to them in various forms like imports, funds for university education- many Universities in the UK depend on the funds charged from foreign students.\u00a0 Most of our experts do not have the capacity to think of how the IMF\u00a0 ruined our economies.<\/p>\n

Let me hope that the ideas in this paper will be\u00a0 read by people of worth, those who have the authority to do something to build up our lost industries and create employment for our own youth.<\/p>\n

Garvin Karunaratne<\/p>\n

Former Government Agent, Matara District<\/p>\n

27 th August 2016<\/p>\n

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By Garvin Karunaratne On my recent travel to Snowdonia in Wales, I happened to visit the Corris Industrial Unit.\u00a0 What was most interesting was a Mini Distillery using many ingredients, including an array of spices, turning out special alcoholic drinks I kept wondering\u00a0 what I could have done if I had known this mini Distillery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58119","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\/58119","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=58119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}