Uva PC polls:

Clear mandate for UPFA ,CWC

by P. Krishnaswamy

The plantation community has given a clear mandate to the ruling UPFA and its ally, the CWC, at the recently-held Uva PC polls and to all development plans, including the 10 year National Plan of Action Plan at a cost of Rs. 10 billion per year. These would be implemented for the social and economic development of the community, said CWC President and Deputy Minister of National Building and Estate Infrastructure Development Muthu Sivalingam.

Tamil political parties that contested in alliance with the Opposition UNP and those who broke away from the CWC to form their own political parties were defeated in the polls, implying that the plantation people have endorsed the development programs that are being implemented by the Government in alliance with the CWC for their welfare, he said.

More projects and plans to fully integrate the community into the mainstream and raise their socio-economic conditions to be on par with other communities are in the pipeline - under the Millennium Development Goals and the Mahinda Chintana.

The problems being faced by the plantation communities with regard to health, education, unemployment, sanitation and infrastructure would be adequately addressed under these programs, the Deputy Minister said.

The CWC, together with the Lanka Jathika Estate Workers' Union (LJEWU) and the Joint Plantation Trade Union Centre (JPTUC) would continue to hold discussions with representatives of Regional Plantation Companies to get a reasonable wage increase under a new Collective Agreement, he said.