{"id":99256,"date":"2020-02-23T17:33:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T00:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99256"},"modified":"2020-02-23T17:33:31","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T00:33:31","slug":"hambantota-in-the-throes-of-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/23\/hambantota-in-the-throes-of-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Hambantota in the throes of Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne, PhD. Michigan State University<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Ideas of possible development, poverty alleviation for the\npeople in Hambantota reign supreme in my mind as I watch the parade of our\nPresident and Prime Minister opening the Hambantota Section of our Southern\nHighway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recall a Paper I have published earlier which deserves\nimmediate action. It details  how the\nnext phase of development  after the\nbuilding up of an airport, a tank- Lunugamwehera and a port- Hambantota  has to be done. My Paper A Rural\nRenaissance in the Offing, publishded in 2014 is reproduced here in full for\nthe kind perusal by our leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every recommendation I have made is practical to the hilt. I do\nnot belong to the category of doctrinaire economists, who know only theory and\nnot a day\u2019s practical work. I can assure that the peasants of Hambantota\nDistrict can easily be rewarded with incomes \u2013 poverty alleviation can be\naccomplished within a year at most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my Paper I have argued for the establishment of a Cannery\nwhere we will turn out Red Pumpkin into Golden Melon Jam and Ash Pumpkin into\nSilver Melon Jam and have Melon Juice \nand Mango Slices and Juice. This is nothing new. We in the Marketing\nDepartment did it earlier and if our leaders give the go ahead it can be\naccomplished within six months.  I have\nwritten another Paper on Paper Making subsequently which too tells how Paper\ncan be made out of straw. It was our bold scientists that found the art of\nmaking Paper out of straw and it is an irony of fate that we do not make any\npaper out of straw while India, Thailand, China and every country around us\nmake paper out of straw. My suggestion is simple, import a small scale paper\nmaking machine from India or China and get going. If the machine is air flown\nwe can install it within a month and the Maha harvest straw will become Paper\nand we can kiss good bye to paper imports. The time frame I am suggesting in\nthis Paper  is the speed at which I did\nwork as the G.A. at Matara in 1971-1973 and as the Commonwealth Fund Advisor to\nthe Government of Bangladesh in 1981-1983. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My readers may think of my suggestions as impractical- here is\nan old hand who worked half a century ago talking nonsense. But we did work\nfast then. Under the Divisional Development Councils Programme of 1970 to1977,\nwe katcheri administrative officers did wonders. We established a Boatyard\nturning out 40 foot motor fishing boats a year- the boatyard was established\nwithin three months. A Divisional Secretary \nat Kotmale established a Paper Factory and it was a great success. I can\nalso speak of the Crayon Factory we did establish at Morawaka. The craze in me\nto teach the Ministry of Plan Implementation a lesson, because they did not\napprove my establishing any import substitution type of industry made me take\nover the Rahula College science lab after hours. I put my scientist- my own\nPlanning Officer Vetus Fernando, to work on a myriad experiments to find the\nart of making crayons. He was helped by non grad science teachers.  We spent the mid night oil six to midnight\nfor almost every day for three months and we found the art of making crayons\nequal in quality to the Reeves crayons that were then imported. Then with one\nword from me Sumanapala Dahanayake the Member of Parliament for Deniyaya in his\ncapacity as the President of the Morawak Korale Coop Union  established the handmade crayon factory\nwithin two weeks working 24 hours a day. The Crayon Factory came into being in\nless than five months. A Crayon is a sophisticated product and the Crayola\nCrayon recipe will be patented and worth millions. The fact that we were\nsuccessful in making crayons means that we can make almost everything we\nimport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From where will the funds come? Funds will come from the savings\nwe make by stopping imports. With a very small expenditure, if we work fast we\ncan easily recoup our expenses from savings in imports. When the Minister for\nTrade,Mr Illangaratne approved a small allocation to import dyes for Coop\nCrayon,  in 1971, his Import Controller\nHarry Guneratne immediately  reduced the\nimport of crayons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words come to you from the person who challenged the ILO\nwhen they failed to establish a self employment programme in 1978 to 1981 at\nTangail Bangladesh. I proved to the Hon Minister for Manpower and Labour that I\ncan do what the ILO failed and with his approval I got cracking and designed\nand established the Youth Self Employment Programme within eighteen months,\ntrained youth workers and vocational educators in economics and established the\nProgramme, which is yet going strong in Bangladesh and has so far guided three\nmillion youths to become self employed. This is the premier employment creation\nprogramme the world has known<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope I have convinced our leaders that poverty alleviation is\nsomething that can be done. We did it once and can do it again. Let us think of\nHambantota or better, the Southern Province as a  model area- just as once in 1960 the\nGovernment of Pakistan requested the USA to provide them with the expertise to\nfind the quickest method of poverty alleviation. The USA its Agency for\nInternational Development( AID) selected Michigan State University to provide\nthe expertise and the Government of Pakistan selected Dr Akhter Hameed Khan as\nthe Director. The Kotwali Thana, a division of the Comilla District was\nselected. In less than ten years the yield of paddy was increased by 103%,\ncooperative members increased from 200 to 11,637,  overdues kept within 2%, 80 % of land was\nbrought under high yielding varieties and full employment was established\n(From:Non Formal Eduvation Theory & Practice at Comilla)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am prepared to give an undertaking that total poverty alleviation, involving the establishment of many small industries, the development of agriculture and small industries can be achieved within five years.\u00a0 I am prepared to work with administrator and scientists\u00a0 and can assure success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Rural Renaiussance in the Offing<\/a><\/blockquote>