{"id":66601,"date":"2017-06-02T16:59:53","date_gmt":"2017-06-02T23:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=66601"},"modified":"2017-06-02T16:59:53","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T23:59:53","slug":"sand-from-the-philippines-and-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/06\/02\/sand-from-the-philippines-and-indonesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Sand from the Philippines and Indonesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne Former Government Agent, Matara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

It is reported in the past Sunday Times\u00a0 that we are getting sand from overseas as far as the Philippines and Indonesia.(Sunday Times)<\/p>\n

I wonder why.<\/p>\n

We have ample resources of sand. Having worked in over half the Districts in Sri Lanka and having done islandwide circuits over the entire terrain of the island for over five years, I am of the opinion that we do have enough and more of sand. In attending to endless tasks in rural and agricultural development, fertilizer distribution, minor irrigation and the administration of two districts, I have travelled by car, and trudged on footpaths on all types of terrain. At times I was criticised for drawing travelling claims above my salary.<\/p>\n

I am therefore puzzled to realise why we have to get sand from abroad, incurring our borrowed foreign exchange.<\/p>\n

A few years ago on my trip to Mahiyangana I met endless lorries hauling sand. I really wondered why. I was certain that it was not necessary because sand is everywhere on the shores of our endless rivers.<\/p>\n

We are a country that is blessed with ample rainfall, the problem is that we do not know how to handle the gift of water that Mother Nature has bequeathed to us..<\/p>\n

Dealing in sand is also\u00a0 a lucrative trade. A decade ago I noticed sand packing going on at night in a number of empty lands in Nugegoda. By dusk four lorry loads roll in and two or three specialist workmen get involved in unloading. They unload only four loads and re pack them into five lorries. The workmen had mastered the art of shovelling sand in a manner that\u00a0 creates an extra lorry load.\u00a0 They work at least four to five hours a night. They have created an extra load. Having covered and supervised rice milling and paddy handling for long I am aware that\u00a0 there is a method of packing more rice or paddy into a bushel. It depends on the manner in which the rice or paddy is poured in.. An extra lorry load is a fanciful earning. I am also certain that ferrying sand from Mahiyangana and Manampitiya has created a few millionaires.<\/p>\n

To get back to sand from overseas. Our sand is in various places on river beds and river beaches and\u00a0 nature determines the site. The Kelani Ganga, Maha Oya, the Mahaweli and all rivers are apt at this task and it is up to us to find out the spots and extract the amount of sand that will not create a problem for the environment. The officials the Divisional Secretaries and the Grama Nilasdharis will know the spots. \u00a0The Executive Engineers have also to come in. THis is a difficult task but something that can be done.<\/p>\n

The foreign debt that will pile up when we have to pay for sand from overseas is also an important aspect. At the moment we are a bankrupt country, where we are unable to service our loans and we have to resort to borrow at high interest. \u00a0This has proved an easy task as the IMF though talking tough is ever ready to give us a clean bill of health which enables us to find loans. The fact that we get further into debt is forgotten. This is the rotten economic policy that the IMF foisted on our country in 1978, which we yet follow as detailed in my latest book: How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development (Kindle). Till 1977 Sri Lanka was developing- managing with our incomes- We were not an indebted country in 1977.<\/p>\n

Buying sand from overseas is not necessary. What is required is to put our house in order and find the sand within our country..<\/p>\n

Garvin Karunaratne<\/p>\n

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

5 th June 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne Former Government Agent, Matara It is reported in the past Sunday Times\u00a0 that we are getting sand from overseas as far as the Philippines and Indonesia.(Sunday Times) I wonder why. We have ample resources of sand. Having worked in over half the Districts in Sri Lanka and having done islandwide circuits over the […]<\/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-66601","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\/66601","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=66601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}