Reawakening kings’ land

To bring back the glory of Rajarata...:

By Dhaneshi Yatawara

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Harvesting in the paddy fields of Anuradhapura

Sri Lankan kings’ land, or the ‘Rajarata’ hails to a pride history contributing to an enormous portion of the country’s history. It is the birth place of our hydraulic civilization where our ancestors were the world’s wonderful makers of reservoirs, stupas and astounding architectural creations.

As history shows the country’s development showed declining signs with the loss of this marvellous culture and land. Rajarata or the North Central Province is an area with rich cultural heritage.

The region is still lagging behind in using its full potential to contribute to the national economy and developing capacity to absorb benefits of mainstream development of the country.

Developing the North Central Province is aimed at bridging this gap through infrastructure and institutional development programs. The strategy for Rajarata reawakening is centred on self-sustained villages and the preservation of culture and heritage.

Developing the two districts, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa seems to be taking two mainstreams. A self-sustained village development and the development of religious and cultural places.

It has been observed that the flow of water resources is comparatively less for provinces like North Central than other provinces like Western, Southern, Central and North Western. As a result, the level of growth of economy, education, health and infrastructure facilities of these provinces have been deteriorating over the years.

Therefore the present Government initiated special projects to uplift the ancient Rajarata with a prime objective of developing the province by implementing accelerated infrastructure and livelihood development programs uplifting the living standards of the people in every sector of the province.

At present these projects are being implemented under the purview of the Ministry of Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development. Projects are being implemented under the Gama Neguma development program as per the Mahinda Chinthana - the vision for tomorrow.

Rural development

Gama Neguma is the major rural development program of the national development plan. From ancient times, we have been a land of village communities. Even now large majority of population live in the rural areas. Hence, any development initiative should be given due recognition to this reality, if it is to be successful.

The Government believes that our village, while retaining its strengths and impressive features, can be developed as a micro centre of growth with the vision that village has to be a decent and comfortable place for people to live, work and engage in their cultural and communal activities.

The key policy objective of the Government with regard to rural development is to develop all villages of the country so that they emerge as micro centres of growth on modern lines.

Gama Neguma will be the main village uplift program bringing together a number of other specific programs focused on livelihood development and poverty reduction at village level.

At present there are two main channels for delivering Government programs to the village - one is the decentralized system comprising the District Secretariats, Divisional Secretariats and the Grama Niladhari Divisions. The other one will be the devolved system which comprises the Provincial Council and the Local Government Authorities - particularly the Pradeshiya Sabhas.

The Reawakening

In this backdrop the Government emphasizes advancement of villages in the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts and minimizing the disparities in socio, economic, infrastructure sectors in the region for the development of the North Central Province.

Drinking water schemes, upgrading of rural roads, health sector development, rural electrification projects and social, educational and cultural infrastructure improvements can be highlighted as the main components of the initiated and planned projects.

“The basic development unit is the grama niladhari divisions and the North Central Province holds 2824 GN divisions,” P. V. Gunathilake, Senior Assistant Secretary of the Ministry told us explaining the process. Under the Ministry of Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development, the North Central Province comes under ‘Zone 3’. (The Ministry has divided the country into six zones.) Accordingly the budget allocations for this year were directed to the zones and not to the Ministry.

“The total allocation for this year was 14,400 million rupees and out of which 2700 million rupees was for the Zone 3,” Mr. Gunathilake added.

Janasabha

The concept of setting up of ‘Janasabha’ societies is unique under the Gama Neguma program. The main objective is to fill the vacuum of not having one single place where the services of village level officers could be obtained or as a meeting place for the people to gather and arrive at decisions on common matters.

The officers of the Janasabha comprises the Grama Niladhari, Samurdhi Officer, Agriculture Research and Production Assistant, midwife and the Police officer in the Citizens’ Committee of the respective village. Everyone in the village is a memeber.

Considering the views of all the members of this society the Janasabha drafts the Village Development plan. People of the village gets the chance of deciding what should be built first or which road should be repaired first.

“The officers of the Janasabha act solely as facilitators. All the villagers are making the final decision as to how their village should be developed,” Mr. Gunathilake added.

The Government’s village uplift programs strongly focus on community participation in preparing intergrated village development plans targetting all development efforts to achieve a common objective.

This gives an opportunity for an average villager, mostly our farmers, to directly and actively participate in their economic, social, cultural and moral development efforts. This empowers the village community to ensure their total commitment and contribution in the development process. This concept pools all resources utilized in village development. Thus, a productive, transparent intergrated development plan is implemented.

The ‘Janasabha’ concept transforms the rural community to a group of development activists with ideological and comparative thinking abilities and enhance self determination by developing their abilities and skills. A sustainable development on self reliance.

Some of the villages in the Polonnaruwa district are located close to terrorist threatened villages and often attacked by the Tiger terrorists.

Development

The overall development can be classified as, infrastructure facilities development, developing common amenities, developing rural livelihood and religious, cultural and spiritual development.

In the Anuradhapura district, in all the Divisional Secretariat divisions, projects on developing roads, bridges and culverts, water supply, agriculture, irrigation, education, electricity, sports and many others are in progress.

There are 89 projects for the development of roads, bridges and culverts. 64 projects are implemented in every DS division to uplift the water supply and sanitation. And 82 projects are on process building houses, community halls, market places etc. Fifty projects are implemented in the district to provide electricity for the most rural areas.

In the Polonnaruwa district 171 projects are on process or some will be initiated shortly, to develop and reconstruct roads, bridges and culverts. 17 projects are implemented to provide safe drinking water for the people. 21 projects are in line to develop the irrigation system throughout the district. 45 projects to develop the education sector and 22 projects to supply electricity for rural areas are scheduled and some are already on process.

In the Dematawewa and Kebithigollewa areas 100 houses are built for the fishing folk of the area under the “diyawara gammana’ project.

Most of our brave young men fighting to protect the motherland from terrorists hails from this land - a land known for great warriors and heroes.

Every village of the total province is a home of our war heroes. Considering this important fact a project is implemented under the ministry to build houses for the families of the war heroes. Each family will receive 250,000 rupees and with the collective effort of the family the house is built.

A significant feature was revealed during my search for facts of this developing majestic land. Twenty eight gypsy families, who were living in Mihintale will be provided with houses. Up to date these families were not citizens of Sri Lanka though for generations they were living in Sri Lanka. As these people want a change in their lifestyle, facing hardships to make a living the Ministry has given them facilities and equipment to start fishing.

At present, along with the development of the water supply and irrigation sectors, over 8000 acres of paddy land is under cultivation.

The dry zone is not only home for humans but it is the habitat of our majestic treasure - the elephant. Due to several not properly planned development startergies implemented in the past in the dry zone the elephants have lost their land and people were settled within and close to elephant habitats - endangering both.

As now the fact of the matter has been identified the Wildlife Department along with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources are in the process of finding remedies and solutions. One such preventive measure is the electrified fences bordering the village and the forests.

Since some of the areas are within the Polonnaruwa district, ensuring the safety of the villages and the wild also palys an important part. Hence, the Ministry of Nation Building has allocated approximately 26 million rupees to the Wildlife Department as well as to the Government Agent to build these fences.

Regaining the glory

The North Central Province is blessed with a fertile soil and a prosperous culture along with its hard working native people of the land. The potentials are there they need only a little bit of a support, a backing up.

The total development plan has identified this basic reality and focus mainly on utilizing the existing potentials. Hence, developing the ‘Rajarata’ and bringing back its golden era will not be confined to a dream.