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| Sunday, 26 September 2004 |
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Letters |  |
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Please forward your letters to [email protected] in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
Parading at Olympics - at what cost? No one seems to have noted that at the Olympics opening ceremony it was announced, our country's population as 26 million and that we have won only one Olympic medal. Our Prime Minister and his wife waving to millions of television viewers would have felt ashamed of the wrong information given of our country. Leading the Sri Lankan team Susanthika of course seemed thrilled when she was introduced as the winner of a bronze medal at Sydney Olympics. "The bronze medal is the only Olympic medal that country had ever won" were the exact words used. Isn't it the responsibility of the National Olympics Committee (NOC) to provide correct information to the organisers? Knowing well that we had no chance of winning medals couldn't the Chairman NOC at least attend to this? Mr. Chairman, we await your comments. If you want I can provide you with a videotape of the opening ceremony of Olympics. I am sure the general public will agree with me that the participants if any, at the next Olympics merely to take part in an opening and closing parade should be restricted to the athletes taking part at the games. There is no point in wasting money on officials and other non-participants. Wide publicity was given to statements of Sri Lankan participants at the Olympics before their events such as "I am going to do something". The general public is not idiots; we all know that they were to do something. They had to at least participate in one heat. Unless of course these statements were meant to convey that they intended to face the starting line, unlike Susie. All of us knew that none of the participants had any prospects of medals and the chairman NOC says that Sri Lanka has no hope of winning medals for next 10 years. So should we continue to waste the taxpayers' money for participating in a parade at the next Olympics in Beijing? Especially when none of the participants are taxpayers. Apparently Sri Lanka had the biggest delegation in Greece, among countries which had no prospects of a medal. Nelum Jayadewa, Lesson from India's water conservation India is making good use of cheap technology and simple methods to store and distribute water. Narain's Institute has 'test fields' for developing crops and trees and rearing cattle (like the jamnapari goat) which need to a little water. They are studying cheaper irrigation systems and storage specially in drought-ridden areas. They have developed low-tech methods of collecting rain water. One mode is by having a flat roof over the house. The water is conveyed into an underground tank and even during small showers water cannot evaporate or run away. Wells and ponds are deepened and lined with plastic sheeting to lessen seepage. Former tanks and irrigation systems are being renovated. Farmers are using the 'low-cost drip irrigation' method. Fields are terraced so that water running down will be absorbed by crops growing below. A hardy strain of millet and rice need much lesser water. Lectures are held and leaflets distributed to all villagers on water usage and conservation. In desert regions rain water and dew are collected in tarpaulins and large cellophane sheets tied between two poles outdoors. The water is collected early morning. We should teach our children how precious water is. Caryl Nugara, Unemployed graduates and false documents The government to keep its promises and also pressure from politicians and graduates offered jobs to unemployed graduates. Leaving aside the benefit of this exercise the offer has been vastly violated by the graduates. A vast number of graduates who applied for these jobs and provided employment are already gainfully employed in the private sector and many of them are already on programs such as Taruna Aruna. If this is going to be the case in offering jobs in private companies where the government takes all our trained graduate workers after a few years of work. The private sector has no option but to refuse jobs in future to graduates. I personally know of four graduates working in the private sector who have been offered jobs. Some estimate that more than fifty percent of graduates offered employment by the government were employed in the private sector. The government could easily remove all employed graduates by checking E.P.F. records or checking Tharuna Aruna. Some of them have changed their names altering their surnames, first names or middle names. These could all be cleaned out if all applications are checked with ID numbers provided to EPF, ETF or other records. The graduates were asked to furnish affidavits and probably all employed graduates gave false affidavits. The government takes the wise decision to crack down on this misuse and offer jobs only to unemployed graduates who truly deserve the jobs and would be grateful. We in the private sector are reluctant to offer any jobs to graduates who will use us just as a stepping stone until they get jobs in the government sector. If you fail in this, please don't ask the private sector to help the government by providing jobs to graduates. The saying goes once bitten twice shy. A. Shantha Perera, Bellanwila - Attidiya environment It is gladdening to read and hear, as bird watchers and nature lovers, that action is being taken to set up an organisation to protect, promote and preserve the already vandalised Bellanwila - Attidiya Bird Sanctuary. As a regular visitor to this beautiful sanctuary, watching birds, butterflies of various colours, it saddens to see encroachments and filling and construction of buildings with impunity under the very eyes of the Low Lying Reclamation Board. It is very strange that authorities have not objected and removed the shanty which has now become a permanent house with asbestos roof, inside the sanctuary along the Dehiwala - Maharagama road and also a boutique in front of it, built on the highway reserve. The RDA should have taken prompt action to have this removed, but for reason better known to the RDA and the officials who work close by had turned a blind eye .. Several letters have appeared in the press and I know of some who have written to the authorities and telephoned too of these unauthorised filling and construction but it falls on deaf ears. Once an influencial politician, who owns a few acres of land within the reserve, started cutting down the shrubs and trees which are the nesting grounds for the birds. This was spotted by a TV channel (Sirasa) and the work was stopped. The filling and constructions go on taking the cue from powerful politicians and an influencial monk in the vicinity. The western side of the sanctuary has been filled and built on to such an extent that rest rooms, storied buildings, serving as hotels and boutiques, with a car park to park over hundred vehicles. When politicians and religious leaders who should set example, break the law what can we expect, not only concerning this sanctuary, but also the entire country ? Strangely, these politicians and monks chair meetings organised to protect this wet land. What hypocracy ? It should be mentioned that sometime back, Minister Srimani Atulathmudali commenced cleaning and improving this area and a Bird Watch Tower was constructed, which is now in a dilapidated condition, virtually collapsed. She opened an office at the Irrigation building (Watch hut) and that too is not functioning now. First step to be taken by the proposed centre is to reclaim the land filled and built on and plant trees, paying no heed to politicians and monks who could weild influence. There is provision on the Land Reclamation Board Act to demolish and take back the land. This should be done without fear or favour. It is hoped that the energetic minister, A.H.M. Fowzie, who has a fine record of his actions in other ministries where he was earlier, will not let the nature lovers and preserve this beautiful Island. S. Rajakaruna, In a very valuable article under the heading "De-Silting of Minor Irrigation Tanks" in the Sri Lanka Engineering News of August 2004, Eng (Mrs.) P. Hettiarachchi has gone to some trouble to work out the cost of carrying out de-silting of a typical minor tank to store water for an acre of land. It is around Rs. 500,000. She herself has made the point that the estimated cost is, in fact, an underestimate. Following the logic inexorably, she recommends, very correctly, that it is far better to concentrate on proper catchment management to minimise silt deposition rather than go in for the totally uneconomical exercise of de-silting tanks after the damage has been done. PH also states that most of the technical departments involved in irrigation matters have realised the above problems on the basis of their own experience but keep silent because of pressure by the public, who are not easy to convince. I myself have worked on major hydroelectric/irrigation projects overseas and was also the Deputy General Manager (Civil Engineering) of the Walawe Project of the River Valleys Development Board in the early 70s, besides having other connections with hydraulics, irrigation and water management. I urge our policy-makers on irrigation to heed PH's views seriously. The repairing and raising of bunds would, if permitted by topographic and other considerations, be by far the more cost-effective way of increasing tank capacities. Politicians should, therefore, not allow themselves to be pressurised by vociferous farmers to make unrealistic promises to de-silt tanks in the hope of getting more votes. There is no doubt that a great many more votes would be lost in the end when the politicians may be expected to run out of money to fulfil their pledges. There was, at one time, a deputy minister who, instead of encouraging farmers to cooperate with the irrigation authorities to conserve water, told them from a public platform that, if there was not enough water in the Walawe Ganga, he would have the water from another river diverted to the Walawe Ganga to make up the shortage! For the sake of cheap popularity, he completely ignored the fact that the shortage was created by the profligacy of the farmers themselves. Let us hope the present lot is wiser. Dr. A. C. Visvalingam, |
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