Holding three portfolios, no easy task

*Develop the educational standard of children

*Re-build a tank in each village

*Rs. 5 billion from China for Uva Udanaya

By Manjula FERNANDO

Shashindra Rajapaksa, Chief Minister of Uva province said President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s first advice to him soon after taking his oaths at the Presidential Secretariat on August 20, 2009 was to make this ‘white elephant’ (referring to Provincial Council) a ‘working elephant’ and said that he is adamant in doing so.

The nephew of the fifth Executive President of Sri Lanka and son of Speaker of Parliament Chamal Rajapaksa, Shashindra spoke to the Sunday Observer last week on the challenges in administering a not so wealthy corner of the island and helping its people stand on their own.

Q: What are the issues that you perceive as your challenges as the Uva Province Chief Minister?

A: Uva Province is enriched with unimaginable resources. For example, most of the best quality timber comes from this area, especially from Moneragala. The best water springs start from Uva, in Badulla and Bandarawela. And also best quality tea. It’s a very unique province.

But unfortunately due attention has not been paid to harness the resources to increase the wealth of the province.

Budgetary allocations

The budgetary allocations for all the provinces depend on population disparity. Uva province’s population is less than in other provinces. So, we are at a disadvantage. The income generating projects are in the Uva province.

My personal view is to develop the educational standard of the children in the province. My first priority is to develop primary education which will not go waste. And then cames infrastructure development as second priority.

At the moment we have embarked on a major campaign to train school teachers, specially the primary teachers.

We have nearly 300,000 students studying in 834 schools with 16,823 teachers.

Being the provincial Education Minister, I have personally looked into enhancing teaching aptitudes and capacity of teachers. The areas we focus on are primary education, IT and English proficiency.

For the first time in a province we have started a research and Development Unit to evaluate and compare the status as against the other provinces to improve the educational standard in the province. For example from grade one to grade three, the provincial education authorities are responsible in preparing promotion test papers. We have never compared the paper standard with other provinces. There was no self evaluation and comparative review of the test papers.

Teacher transfer

This has affected the students at the Grade 5 scholarship examination where they have to compete with the best of the best. They have not been able to score well because their foundation was not laid properly. Unless you provide them with a solid foundation, there is no use in pushing them towards higher education. We will be addressing this shortcoming very soon.

We have also invited educational resource personnel from the Universities of Moratuwa, Peradeniya, Kelaniya and Colombo to help us with this endeavour. They have been asked to make recommendations for a complete re-haul of the current educational programs to be par with the education standards with other provinces while taking a cue from new global trends. The system we are using now is quite old.

One of my major issues are teacher transfers. It is a major issue as far as any provincial council is concerned, not just mine, and the line ministry in Colombo. In our case the problem is acute. A province labeled as ‘difficult’ in the minds of education sector employees, there is hardly any individual who would volunteer a transfer to my province.

Last year there were 158 outbound transfers and we received only two replacements. There is no way we can stop them from leaving the province because those who have served for five years in one province can seek a transfer according to the present law.

“It is an upstream struggle for us. I am facing a major problem”.

The Provincial Education Department has to exhaust their entire time to deal with these transfer issues. They hardly have time to look into development issues and students welfare.

In fact I dedicate most of my ‘public day’ to meet about 300 teachers seeking transfers. We have decided to change. A committee has been appointed and their task is to propose recommendations to streamline transfers. Funding is given under the Secondary Education Development project of the Ministry.

In addition the university of Moratuwa and ICTA is helping us to design a special software tool. Once it is in place all 16,800 teachers in the province will have access to evaluate their eligibility for transfers and know where vacancies exist, on line. All 834 schools in the province will be mapout using the GPRS technology. This way education authorities’ will have less work and also prevent teachers from being sent from pillar to post and leave us with more time and space to look into development aspects in the education sector.

Agriculture sector

Uva Wellassa had a great agricultural history. There had been a well maintained irrigation system. As the name suggests, Wellassa - Wel Lakshyak (hundred thousand paddy fields), there has been a major agricultural set up in existence here in the past.

When the British colonial rulers first came here, they destroyed all the irrigation canals in the area. The idea was to paralyse the country’s economic system.

The British High Commissioner visited the area recently. And offered to rebuild some of the tanks. Part of the credit in getting High Commissioner’s interest drawn to this project goes to Governor Nanda Mathew.

The 400 tank project is now in progress and the target is to re-build a tank in each village. We would be able to contribute to the National Food Productivity Plan in the future with the additional land we cultivate. Once the project is completed and thus the funding; Rs. 1,500 million, by the Treasury will be compensated. Electrification is a foremost important issue in my province. In Moneragala district only 47 per cent have electricity and in Badulla this number is about 78 per cent. I may not be able to go back to my voters if I do not rectify this problem soon.

A project with the assistance of the Chinese Government will get off the ground in August this year to overcome the challenge. China will be injecting Rs. 5 billion for the “Uva Udanaya” project.

The three year venture will ensure electrification for 95 per cent of the households in the province. The other five per cent in remote areas of the province will be provided with solar power panels as it is expensive to take hydro power cables to such places. For instance there is a very remote village where there are 23 houses and to take electricity cables to this village cost Rs. 18 million. One of my biggest supporters is from this area and despite his complaints, we have agreed on solar power as the only viable solution right now.

We have about 1738km of roads (C and D grade) under our purview. A feasibility study has been completed for a project to upgrade the road network and we are currently struggling to obtain funding for this venture. This is one of our major development goals.

Tourism hot spots

Currently the Provincial Council with the help of the Economic Development Ministry and the Tourism Board are jointly engaged in developing a tourism promotion blue print. The key tourism hotspots like the Udawalawa National Park, part of Yala, Ella, Rawana Ella, Ramboda Ella, and foremost religious places like Muthiyanganaya, Mahiyanganaya, Maligawila and Yudaganawa and many other scenic places are situated in the Uva province. Our goal is to design a guide line, with the help of the experts, to spell out ways to promote these national heritage sites among locals as well as foreign tourists.

Uva boasts of best climate in Sri Lanka in areas such as Bandarawela, Diyatalawa and Haputale.

Kataragama

This will be one of the key focusses in the tourism promotion drive. An internationally renowned place, we want to promote this as a land of peace ‘Samaye Pudabima’. This is a place where people of all religions Buddhists, Catholics, Hindus and Muslims visit everyday and worship leaving aside their ethnic discords.

There is a mosque inside the temple premises. On an ordinary day it draws 450-500 people but on weekends over 25,000 arrive seeking blessings. This is a wondrous place that has already earned its place in the ‘world travel map’ but I feel that there is much more to be done.

We want to make use of the services of locals with international exposure who have either studied abroad and come back or who have come back to enjoy their retirement to help us in the Uva development drive.

Sugar production

A new Sugar factory is to come up in the province shortly and this has got the cabinet nod recently.

This will be an addition to the existing two other sugar factories in the country Sevanagala and Pelwatte which are also in the Uva province.

Q: How do you carry the responsibilities of three main positions; Uva PC Chief Minister, Presidential Secretary and Basnayake Nilame of the Ruhunu Kataragama Devalaya?

A: I dedicate two days to perform duties as the President’s Secretary in Colombo. I spend four days in Badulla attending my provincial council duties and one day at Kataragama. I agree, it is not an easy task.