|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Thursday, 1 January 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Features | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
Innovation and Self Reliance - felicitation to Dr. A. N. S. Kulasinghe by D. L. O. Mendis Eng. Sumitra Moonesinghe, Chairperson of the Bank of Ceylon, delivered the keynote address when Dr. A. N. S. Kulasinghe engineer sans pareil in Sri Lanka was elected as the first Honorary Fellow of the Sri Lanka Society of Structural Engineers on December 9, 2003, at the monthly meeting at the Hilton hotel. Ms. Moonesinghe was the first woman Electrical engineering graduate in the University of Peradeniya, and the second woman engineer after Dr. Premila Sivaprakasapillai, a civil engineer, who is presently a Professor attached to the Open University. The late Professor R. H. Paul, rightly recognised as the father of electrical engineering education in Sri Lanka, had the highest regard for Ms. Moonesinghe as his student, and predicted an outstanding career for her. Indeed she has earned a position of eminence in society, which no doubt confirms Professor Paul's expectations though not in the way he would have liked, as he had looked forward to the day when she would join the faculty as a colleague. Perhaps the first engineer to become a banker in Sri Lanka, was Moksevi Prelis who rose to be Managing Director of the Development Finance Corporation. Ms. Moonesinghe too, soon discovered that Banking was a more rewarding career than engineering, as described in her Keynote address that was published in the Daily News, December 26, 2003. Having been present at the December 9 meeting, I wish to offer some constructive comments on that address, which I am sure engineer Ms. Moonesinghe will understand and not take amiss. I would appeal to her to consider these comments in the spirit in which they are offered, and lend her support to practising engineers in Sri Lanka, today, who face unequal competition from foreign engineering firms that have come into the country on account of financial reasons unrelated to engineering. The nett result as I see it, and shall try to demonstrate, is a serious debilitation in the practice of engineering in Sri Lanka, with potentially grave long-term economic consequences at a national level. At the December 9 meeting, Eng. Wickremasinghe, President of the Society of structural engineers, gave a brief resume of Dr. Kulasinghe's contributions to the development of many branches of engineering in Sri Lanka. Eng. Professor Priyan Dias elaborated on Dr. Kulasinghe's specific contributions in structural engineering, emphasizing his invention of the Kulasinghe - CPC system of prestressing used in prestressed concrete, and shell concrete structures, in particular. He quoted the famous US Professor T. Y. Lin, of the University of California, Berkeley, who had dedicated his standard work on prestressed concrete - 'To Engineers who rather than blindly following the Codes of Practice, seek to apply the Laws of Nature' and said that Professor Lin probably had the young Kulasinghe in mind when he wrote those words! Dr. Kulasinghe, replying to the kind sentiments expressed, briefly and eloquently, (and modestly) traced the highlights of his engineering career that had started in the early 1940s, at Norton Bridge hydroelectric scheme, followed by his appointment as Junior Assistant Harbour Engineer in the Port Commission department. (His meteoric and purely meritorious rise in that department led to his appointment as Port Commissioner, the first engineer to wrest this prestigious post from the elite Ceylon Civil Services, to be the preserve of engineers thereafter). Eng. Wickremasinghe then presented a copy of Innovation and Self Reliance, the Kulasinghe felicitation volume in the Institution of Engineers, History of Engineering in Sri Lanka series, to Eng. Ms. Sumitra Moonesinghe, and invited her to deliver her Keynote Address. Ms. Moonesinghe may refer some pages of the Felicitation volume as described, to better appreciate remarks made hereunder in all humility and sincerity, and understand their purpose. (This volume is still available for sale at the Institution of Engineers, for anyone interested). Kulasinghe's phenomenal career reached a plateau of achievement in 1968, when he was appointed Port Commissioner, and also became President of the National Academy of Sciences. Next, he became President of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, in 1969, and General President of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science in 1970. The general elections of July 1970, led to an anti-climax when a politically-motivated Committee of Inquiry looked into the State Engineering Corporation which he had set up in 1962. This led to Kulasinghe's resignation from the post of Chairman, and departure from Sri Lanka for Malaysia. The loss to the national exchequer during the period of the closed economy 1970-77, is immeasurable. In retrospect three decades later, this contretemps may perhaps be explained by an observation made by a former Principal of Mahinda College, Galle, F. G. Pearce, quoted in "From the Living Fountains of Buddhism" edited by Dr. Ananda Guruge: "The one characteristic of the Sinhalese people that I have always observed is that they are jealous of each other". (p. 451) Whatever the explanation, when the open economy arrived after 1977, local engineering endeavour had become rather demoralised and unable to cope with the influx of foreign expertise. This was in sharp contrast to the inspiring innovation and self reliance that had characterized the earlier three decades described as the Golden Age of Engineering in Sri Lanka, 1940 - 1970, in the Irrigation department's Centenary volume, 2000. From that time to this, many able to local engineers have had to play second fiddle to foreign engineers, who have had a whale of a time, in design and construction of projects with grossly inflated estimates to meet the requirements of their high overheads. Worse still, today, there is little or no scope for innovation and self-reliance in engineering in Sri Lanka, and this way truly reflected in Ms. Moonesinghe's Keynote address. The burden of that speech was that local engineers are still not competent enough to prepare bankable proposals for funding, presumably foreign funding, because local funds are simply not available in the Treasury, and only so-called bilateral and multilateral aid, and lines of credit, are available for engineering projects, By her own admission, having long since moved from engineering proper to banking, Ms. Moonesinghe has no special interest in whether a project is managed by foreign or local engineers. There were many in the audience that day who have not joined a band-wagon or personally profited from any foreign funded project, but rather have tried with varying degrees of success and failure, to fight the influx of foreign so-called aid projects, that are weighted heavily against the locals. To these engineers the Keynote address was rather a disappointment, especially when it was on the occasion of felicitating Dr. Kulasinghe. To make this point clearer two examples may be given, one from the earliest days of the open economy, and the other from this week's TV news. In 1978, design and construction of the Maduru Oya earth dam had been awarded to the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau (CECB) and the River Valleys Development Board, (RVDB), respectively. Sri Lanka people have been building earth dams from pre-Christian times to the present day. The total estimated cost for the CECB design for the Maduru Oya Development Board, (GODB) - fondly known as the Good Old Dam Builders - when it was announced that the dam would be built under Canadian aid! Thereafter, a new design was prepared by foreign consultants for a rock-fill dam to be built by foreign contractors, at an estimated cost of Rs. 2600 millions, of which the local component alone, to be met by Sri Lanka, was 25% or Rs. 650 million! Of course apologists have said that the actual local cost was less than the nominal book cost of Rs. 650 million, and that the foreign cost included generous grants and deferred payments. But, who knows the actual nature of these aid projects? Certainly not the man in the street. And, was there a valid reason to take the project from a competent local agency and give it to a foreign so-called aid program, when the foundation work was already nearing completion? The second example is the dredger purchased by the Port Authority of Sri Lanka as announced on Christmas day 2003, costing Rs. 473 million. In conclusion, I am sure that many engineers would join me in appealing Ms. Moonesinghe to lend her support to help us in fighting this situation and Regaining Sri Lanka in the truest sense by restoring the spirit of innovation and self reliance, whatever the odds. (The writer is Past President, Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, Adviser (Techniques), Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs (1969 - 1978), Technical Adviser, Ministry of Irrigation and Water Management (2002 - 2003) |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
