Request people to wear local handloom garments on Wednesday, Governor proposes

Sanjaya Asela Maturata

KANDY: A system could be introduced requesting people to wear local handloom garments on Wednesday which is the 'public day' in Government offices. This will help the local handloom industry, Central Province Governor Tikiri Kobbekaduwa said.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the three-day seminar and training programme conducted by the Kandy Mahinda Rajapaksa Self-Employment and Social Development Foundation together with the Kandurata Development Bank and the Small Industries Development Division of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.

"In certain countries, laws and regulations have been formulated to safeguard their national industries. In Indonesia for instance, it is a requirement for their people to wear a batik garment to help the batik industry.

In our country too, to encourage the local handloom industry, we could introduce a system requesting people to wear local handloom garments on Wednesday which is the 'public day' in Government offices," the Governor said.

The concept of open economy destroyed national industries. On President Mahinda Rajapaksa's advice, the Government has formulated a plan to encourage and uplift small and medium industrialists, Kobbekaduwa said.

The Governor said that it was the golden era of local industries during the time of the late Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

"With the introduction of the open economy, these local industrialists were helpless. This Government is striving hard to strengthen the position of these industrialists and obtain their cooperation to uplift the national economy," Kobbekaduwa said.

As in Sri Lanka, small time industrialists in the world are not people who started their business with inherited money from their parents or received money by chance.

They have worked very hard on their own to rise in the commercial world. This is a good example for the younger generation who aspire to become industrialists in the future, he said.

Kandurata Development Bank Chairman Keshala Jayawardena said though many aid programmes had been developed to uplift the economic conditions of the poor even from the 1930s, many have not made use of this opportunity.

In this situation, people become dependent on the rich. The idea of having these self-employment workshops is to rid this attitude of dependence from the minds of people and help them develop their talents, he said.