Badulla resurgence awakens Uva

By Dhaneshi YATAWARA

This great land of agriculture with a gigantic rice production recorded in history was named 'Wellassa' - meaning the land with 100,000 paddy fields. We don't know how this was done and who did this; but we do know this lost glory needs to be restored in this historical province known as 'Uva' at present.

For Buddhists of this country Uva holds the first place Lord Buddha visited - Mahiyanganaya. Uva province is the grand owner of many mystique places of our island nation. Blessed with many beautiful waterfalls and marvellous geographical creations Uva can be developed into a wonderful city of vivid and varied attractions.

In order to bring back that prosperity, the present Government initiated main three irrigation system development programs under the concept of 'Pubudamu Wellassa' - 'Reawaken Wellassa'. This includes Uma Oya, Menik Ganga and Weli Oya multi-purpose irrigation projects. The Uma Oya project is in progress at an accelerated pace and the other two projects are also off the ground these three projects will benefit over 800,000 people.

The government has implemented Gama Neguma, Jathika Sawiya, thousand water tanks development plan, Maga Neguma and many such development programs to develop Uva. For the Pubudamu Wellassa project the Government has allocated approximately 20.98 billion rupees during the 2006-2009 period.

Of the two districts of the Uva province the Badulla district included three divisions which were rated among the poorest areas of Sri Lanka few years ago. In 2002 Badulla poverty level was 37 percent and at present it is decreased to 23percent.

Improved access

According to the information available with the District Secretariat office most of the development programs were carried out during last year were in the Passara Divisional Secretariat (DS) Division. And many of the programs during the past three years were on developing the road network.

One year ago it took fifteen hours for a lorry transporting vegetables to reach Colombo and with the renovations and optimum quality of the road network transportation takes only eight hours. Ella-Wellawaya, Nuwara Eliya-Badulla, Passara-Badulla, Meegahakiwula-Badulla roads are transforming into well constructed roads with the progress of the repairs and reconstruction works taking place at present. The Nuwara Eliya-Badulla road is getting expanded 7 metres in width with a total length of 68 kilometres. The total cost of this project is around 5.34 billion rupees.

The present District Secretariat office will move from its 100 years old building to a new sophisticated office complex building in the heart of the town. After completion this building would be the tallest in the Uva province with a height of 125 feet. At the moment 95percent of the construction work is completed. The Badulla District Secretariat is in full swing with the new development plans and in 2008 it won the third place in national productivity awards for its effectiveness and efficiency.

Easy transport

Being a highly agricultural area Badulla district harvests a large stock of vegetables and fruits annually. The major part of it gets destroyed as it gets damaged during loading into trucks and transporting to outstation markets like Colombo. To avoid this wastage, use of plastic containers is getting popular among the traders after the awareness programs conducted by the 'Gama Neguma' as part of its livelihood development programs. Accordingly the Ministry of Nation Building has granted 2 million rupees for Badulla district to fund the private traders through a revolving loan scheme.

The project runs with the assistance of the Institute of Post Harvest Technology.

Housing

The 'Gama Neguma', assisting to build houses for the neediest people of a Grama Niladhari Division has given special attention to the needs of war heroes. In this project Service Personnel of the Armed Forces who are either disabled or still in service living in dire conditions will be provided with a modern house. The significance of the project is manpower and part of the material requirements are provided by the people of the village. For the year 2009 the Ministry of Nation Building has allocated a total of 22.5 million rupees for Badulla district to build houses for war heroes at each DS Division. This will be either to put up a new house if the existing house is very poor and to attend to necessary renovations of other houses.

Apart from these housing projects, in order to uplift the lives of people working in the estate sector, the Ministry of Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development has implemented 27 housing projects. In this project 765 housing units will be constructed for the people. Out of this 194 housing units, the largest number, are being constructed in four estates in Haldumulla DS Division at a cost of 48.50 million rupees. 183 units will be constructed in the Haputale DS Division in six estates at a cost of 59.44 million rupees 105 units are being constructed in Passara DS Division in five estates at a cost of 26.25 million rupees and 100 housing units in Hali Ela DS Division in four estates at a cost of 25 million rupees. In Welimada DS Division 65 housing units will be constructed at a cost of 16.25 million rupees and 25 units in Bandarawela DS Division at a cost of 6.25 million rupees. In Uva Paranagama 40 units will be constructed at a ten million rupees cost and 25 units in Ella DS Division. In Badulla DS Division 28 houses will be put up at a cost of seven million rupees.

In supply of drinking water and sanitation facilities, the Ministry of Nation Building has implemented 19 projects in the past three years in these estates in Badulla district at a total cost of 7.78 million rupees.

As vocational training for estate youth in the Badulla district the Ministry has conducted several training programs in driving, curtaining and tailoring. During the past three years 410 million rupees were spent by the Ministry to make these students into skilled men and women with these vocational training programs.

This year Hondagala division road in the Ella DS Division, an access road to estates, will be developed at a cost of four million rupees and in the same DS Division Ellawatte Ambugama division road will be developed at a cost of 2 million rupees. The Needwood estate second division road will be developed with 0.7 million rupees.

In Badulla district six water supply and sanitation facilities will be provided to Gonamotawa upper division road, Nayabedda estate's St. Catherine division, Gonakelle lower division, Cocogalle, Springvally and Glenmore estates within this year for which 3.84 million rupees are allocated.

As the Gama Neguma project focuses on the spiritual development of a community, the Ministry has allocated 11.5 million rupees to construct cultural centres in Haputale and Passara DS Divisions.

The Uva Provincial Council recruited 3,700 Tamil speaking teachers in the recent past. In addition ten hospitals in the estate sector were taken over by the Government and were upgraded into Government Hospitals.

Evaluation

All the projects running under the umbrella of 'Gama Neguma' should be evaluated by the Grama Niladhari, Samurdhi Development Officer, Agriculture Development Officer and the midwives of each GN Division. With this infrastructure development, livelihood development and improvement in health sector are assessed by these officers at the grassroots level and once in three months the reports should reach the relevant officials of the Ministry of Nation Building through the local authorities.