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Minister of Irrigation and Water Management Gamini Jayawickrema Perera who as Chief Minister of North Western Province in 1989 is reputed to have first motivated the Tri Star Group in the setting up of the first Garment factory in a rural area at Karandagolla, paid tribute to the company and the Chairman of Tri Star Group Kumar Dewapura who pioneered it when he paid a visit to company's headquarters and its main Factory recently.

One of Minister Jayawickrema Perera's first engagements after assuming office as Minister was to take time off to pay a visit to one of the biggest of the 30 factories operated by Tri Star - the main factory and head Office at Ratmalana, at the invitation of Mr. Dewapura, as he said "to show my appreciation of Mr. Dewapura's efforts in taking the first few steps that led to a giant leap forward in the location of garment industries in the villages under President Premadasa's 200 Garment Factories Program".

The Minister recalled how he invited Mr. Dewapura in 1989 to visit one of the rehabilitation camps at Karandagolla in the Kurunegala district where several youth who were taken into custody for their involvement in the abortive JVP insurrection of 1988-89 were being rehabilitated. Mr. Dewapura suggested to Mr. Perera that he could be of help in training these youth in skills of garment manufacture. Mr. Dewapura said that if a suitable plot of land was given he was prepared to set up a garment factory to train and employ these people.

Minister Perera said he grasped that opportunity and found a land and Mr. Dewapura did the rest by setting up the factory soon the first major garment factory set up in a rural location. Tri Star's Karandagolla factory exists to this day as a monument to how hundreds of thousands of youth, male and female, frustrated as they are without jobs, turning a new leaf in their lives, he said.

It was about the time when the Karandagolla factory was set up that President Premadasa was exploring avenues of providing employment opportunities to the rural youth when Mr. Dewapura told the President of his experiences of the Karandagolla success. After visiting Tri Star's Karandagolla factory, President Premadasa felt that this was an ideal way of providing some sort of decent employment to youth who had their education cut short due to poverty and other reasons. Thus was born the 200 Garment Factories Program which propelled the garment Manufacturing Industry to be the highest foreign exchange earner to the country and also led to economic and social uplift of life in the rural areas. Apparel quotas were allocated to these factories based on distance of location and strength of employees of these factories as an inducement to the industrialists.

Minister Perera recalled that it was President Premadasa's dynamic approach which made the 200 Garment Factories Program a success as it did. Minister Perera who toured the main factory employing over 900 employees producing non-quota garments for Marks and Spencer said he knew that Mr. Dewapura had to make a great deal of financial sacrifices to make the lives of thousands and hundreds of youth better.

In the Kurunegala District alone Tri Star today operates ten factories for which the youth felt grateful to this day. The Tri Star Group also suffered due to withdrawal of their quota allocation to most of the outstation factories since 1995 because the factories could not produce the full quota as the employees were yet being trained. Tri Star deserves to be helped taking into consideration the great contribution the company had made towards the socio-economic development of the country, Mr. Perera said.

Chairman of Tri Star Group Kumar Dewapura thanked Minister Jayawickrema Perera for honouring them with a visit to their Head Office and the main factory in Colombo on becoming a Minister in the new Government. It was Minister Perera who motivated him in setting up the first ever garment factory in a remote village such as Karandagolla by inviting him to visit a rehabilitation camp. It was President Premadasa who initiated and carried through the 200 Garment Factories programme for which tens of thousands of those employed in Garment Factories today are grateful. Though the Tri Star Group had to make great deal of financial sacrifices yet he derived spiritual satisfaction in improving the lives of poverty stricken families through this effort.

Mr. Dewapura said the employees of these factories were hopeful that the new Government which had quite rightly pledged to help the crisis ridden garment manufacturing industry would help them out of the present difficulties they faced.

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