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by Ravi Ladduwahetty

Minister for Rural Economy and Deputy Minister of Finance, Bandula Gunawardena

That 80 percent of Sri Lankans are living below the poverty line is no secret. They are living in abject poverty. Considered separately from the urban economy, the rural economy provides the bulk of the national produce for consumption from agricultural produce to others.

It is the rural areas that are confronted with all the social perils such as poverty, ignorance, lack of earning opportunities, inadequacy of educational facilities and the absence of social infrastructure such as health facilities, to name a few.

Therefore, the priority of the United National Front (UNF) Government is to empower the village first and then the urban areas. It is with these noble ideals in mind that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has envisioned this new Ministry, which is another first time in independent Sri Lanka, articulates the new Minister for Rural Economy and Deputy Minister of Finance, Bandula Gunawardena, himself a veteran economist and educationist.

The role of the new Ministry will be to identify the social and economic issues in the rural areas on a case-by-case basis, which will be mainly in terms of unemployment and poverty alleviation and also with regard to the utilisation of the natural and the human resources components in these areas, individually. This will also logically mean that studies will be made into what natural resources have been under-utilised or unutilised.

One of the major roles of the new Ministry will also be to coordinate the mandates of other ministries in the development of the rural areas. For instance, it will draw from the Ministry of Enterprise Development, Investment Promotion Industrial Policy and Constitutional Affairs to establish new industries and investments while it will also coordinate affairs with the Agriculture Ministry when it comes to the harnessing of seed material and extension services.

It will be the Transport, Highways and Aviation Ministry when it comes to roads and highways development in the Government's quest to uplift the social standards of the rural areas and thereby creating social equity.

The Minister says that he hopes to draw from the resources of not only local resource personnel from the state and private sectors, but also NGOs and also the international community.

He called upon especially the expatriate Sri Lankan who are capable and interested in serving the country especially in the area of rural development to come forward with proposals.

He is also emphatic that the new Ministry is not geared to be a panacea for the day to day economic ills of the village. This means that it would not be taking over the functions of institutions of the Samurdhi Ministry and other organisations, which deal with the mundane issues.

It is with the objective of establishing a long term and medium term sustainable economic development program that the Ministry has been originated, he spells out.

There are numerous examples, which could be illustrated as to how rural development could be effected at a micro scale level. This would mean that the water in a village waterfall could be harnessed to implemented to provide a mini hydropower scheme. Then, on the long term, there could be the infusion of Information Technology, which could be infused into these areas in the lines of Andra Pradesh in India, which is a classic example of a Third World Country making giant strides in this sphere at international levels, he says.

The idea is to provide the long-term solutions to festering problems in rural areas. He said:" We could also get the rural youth to grow cash crops such as cashew, medicinal plants and find export markets for them". He enthused and added that the Government will play a mediatory role in the provision of the finances. "This could turn out to be export promotion villages in the long term", he adds.

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