CITIZENS’ MAIL
The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has been indicating that 80
percent of the Consumers use less than 90 units for decades. But any
person with common sense will understand that average consumer cannot
manage normal standard of living with such low usage. Only those who
have rigged their meters and those who have several meters in their
houses could manage to avoid exceeding 90 units. There are several
unscrupulous residents who have obtained separate assessment numbers
from the municipality even though it is a single large house not
separated and owned by a single owner and immediate families. This means
several meters are installed by the CEB on the basis of separate
assessment numbers.
The CEB is not concerned as long as the municipality gives separate
assessment numbers. It is possible for these consumers to avoid the high
traffic of the CEB by this means. It is the residents who do not resort
to these tactics are affected by this high tariff increase of 8 percent.
I therefore appeal to the Power and Energy Minister the following:
1. Not to increase the tariff up to 250 units for domestic consumers,
if they have to live a decent standard of living and increase the tariff
over 250 units by a higher price. 2. have only a two slab in the tariff
- Upto 250 units at the present tariff and increased unit price for
units above 250 units. By this means, the CEB cannot lose revenue by
such consumers who resort to several meters. 3. Only one house meter in
the name of the owner of a house with separately identified portion of
the House. Any further meter requirement for a single house should be
covered not only by assessment number but proof of occupancy/permanent
separation by that portion of the house certified by a JP or such
qualified authority appointed by the Minister. The Minister should look
into the loss due to the high cost of private purchase power and revise
the fixed charges in the purchase power agreements with them as interest
cost have reduced. 5. Carry out cost reduction in the CEB as waste is
high especially in the use of vehicle and procurements. 6. Suspend Bonus
payments until the CEB is profitable. 7. Stop payment of PAYE tax of
taxable employees by the Board. 8. Bring productivity in the CEB by new
technology in every sections and reduce staff loading. 9. Stop
outsourcing of all activities in the CEB and get CEB employees to do the
connections, tree cutting works, etc. 10. Stop retaining as Consultans
retires executives in the CEB and the Ministry as there more talented
young engineers to carry out work. 11. Ensure reforms in the CEB do not
increase already high overheads and create new posts. 12. Stop
extravagant expenditure on air conditioned offices within the CEB H/Q
building and area managers offices until the CEB has turned round. 13.
Introduce proper Cash flow management and actions on misuse of funds.
14. use only Government Auditors to audit the CEB. 15. Utilize only two
CEB personnel on motor bikes instead of use a large number in CEB Vans
to carry out disconnections. 16.Introduce rewards scheme for the people
who inform meter rigging and illegal connections.
Concerned Citizen
It has been proposed to increase the electricity bills of
householders consuming over 90 units by eight percent. The assumption is
that over 75 percent consume less than 90 units. This may be true to
rural areas but may not be applicable to the average middle class urban
citizens who are pressed by the rising cost of living.
I am on retirement and my household consists of myself, my wife and a
servant. My house is a single stories three bed room unit.
All lamps are CFL except for one out door 40 watt fluorescent which
is switched on only if necessary. Indoor lamps are lit only when
required and the refrigerator is switched off daily from 10 pm to 7 am.
We both are arthritis patients and use the water heater sparingly on
cold evenings. During the last six months we have not used a single fan
as the days were not that warm. With all this care and concern, our
electricity bills from January to November were for a maximum of 134 and
a minimum of 104 units (dependent on the number of days).
We are living purely on the interest income from our savings. As it
is well known, the interest rates are falling with every renewal and the
cost of living is spiralling daily. The gap between income and
expenditure is widening. I am certain that citizens of our category will
have to bear an additional burden by way of the increased electricity
charges.
We would be grateful to the Minister if he would be good enough to
consider raising the limit of 90 units to 120 units.
W j Peiris
It is amusing, nay irritating to see a TV station has taken to show
continuous snowing when news is read. Hello, This is Sri Lanka,
remember? It does not snow here. We are blessed with gorgeous sunshine
and rainbows right throughout the year. We have lovely showers,
plentiful vegetation from January to and including December, birds
signing, people on the roads laughing and merry-making.
We are blessed with the best of the weather in the whole world. Being
a small island we have monsoons bringing rain right throughout the year,
throughout the island and we have no problem with the temperature
either.
So why are we glorifying the snow? Has Christmas got anything to do
with snow? Certainly not. The fact that Jesus (peace be upon Him) was
not born in December is another matter. Even otherwise what has snow got
to do with Christmas? Nothing, except the English gloried it to cover
their annoyance with it.
One single thing I hated most in my stay in England for four years
was the snow and the thing I missed most was the sun shine of my pretty
little island, Sri Lanka. Snow may look beautiful in pictures and on TV,
true children may play with it for a few hours but when you are living
there, you realize it is horrible to have it for any length of time. You
have to dress so thick, that you cannot breath properly, you cannot walk
properly and you cannot use your fingers properly for all have to be
covered including your nose in so many layers of clothe.
The roads are slippery and many will be closed till the snow melts.
You have to wear special anti slip shoes called wellingtons and until
you learn to balance yourself, you keep slipping and falling. You cannot
drive your cars for the roads will be frozen with many feet depth of
snow. You are stuck indoors for days sometime. Almost all vegetation
dies leaving bleak white horizon.
The English have learnt to make merry with it to overcome the misery
of it since they have to live with it. Why should we? Why do we have the
fricking snow at TV stations when we have our bright December with
glorious sunshine, rain, rainbows, multi-colored flowers on majestic
trees with beautiful signing birds hovering around our lush trees what
more can you ask for?
So why are we still depicting Christmas with snow? Nothing but the
vestiges of our slavery mentality from our colonial masters. We still
cannot let go the stifling ties in this sweltering heat, we still cannot
give-up the stinking socks for our little schoolchildren’s feet, we
still cannot give-up the coat and suit - a sign of our gaping at and
glorifying the west, even if they have been proven to be exactly the
same as us with a sickeningly paler skin.
So let’s get out of these meaningless slavish habits. Let us be truly
and wonderfully Sri Lankans, singing praise of and enjoying our own
weather, our own sunshine and rainbows.
Dr Mareena Thaha Reffai
Many senior citizens are depending on their saving accounts
interests. As the rate of interests paid on fixed deposits was brought
down since 2009 it is less than 50 percent what was paid earlier. As a
result, the monthly interest has decreased. The bonus interest of 20
percent paid from has also been withdrawn.
There are many senior citizens who have retired from government
service. All senior citizens should be paid an increased interest on
their deposits.
Senior citizens are faced with difficulties of paying their medical
bills, therefore, I wish to request that the bonus interest paid until
January 1, 2010 to be paid again.
Their cost of living is high as they have to maintain their health
with supplementary. Therefore, I wish to make a request from the
President that the living allowance of Rs 600 that is to be paid from
January 2011 for the government servants also to be paid for pensioners
too.
R P P De Zoysa
It emerges the urgent necessity of constructing an overhead bridge to
the Kalutara North Railway station. Now there are about 3,000-4,000
commuters travelling via this station daily. The absence of this vital
requirement may give rise to fatal accidents because the people are used
to crossing the railway double lines to proceed to the other platform to
board the oncoming train. This problem affects to children, elderly
person, the differently abled and pregnant women since they have to go
the tail end of the platform to get access.
It is understood, when double lines were introduced about three years
ago, Kalutara North railway personnel had informed the Railway
Department about the necessity of constructing an overhead bridge
ascertaining the available facts.
Trains arrive from opposite directions simultaneously sometimes. On
rainy days, this situation is getting worse. The western side of the
platform roof is also insufficient as it covers only a small section.
The L Iron frame fixed long time ago to support downward corrugated
sheets projected from the platform roofs at both sides are still hanging
bare without fixing the sheets. The Western platform surface should also
be covered with mortar or be macadamized.
Once the train services are temporarily terminated from Galle to
Kalutara next January for repairs, the inevitability of these
requirements becomes more vital. I will also include the fact that this
is the railway station providing an invisible service to the nearby
National School, Tissa Central, Pasdunrata College of Education, a
cluster of many a mixed schools etc including Tsunami housing schemes,
in close proximity and two leading star hotels like Tangerine, and Royal
Palm Beach Hotels which attract many tourists daily and last but not
least the highly congested Wednesday Pola.
So Kalutara North or Deshastra Kalutara known as earlier days is
becoming a Commercial Town and the station is closer to the Galle road
than the Kalutara South Station. These steps are essential to popularize
the transport service combined with the arriving locomotives. It is high
time to refurbish the Kalutara North Railway station and to develop it
as a main railway station with modern facilities to be on par with the
Mahinda Chintana Concept. I hope authorities will give the green light
without further delay.
D K de Zoysa
Law abiding citizens who have been issued with ‘gun licences’
officially under the Fire Arms Ordinance, are required to renew such
licences before December 31 of the current year for the ensuing year.
Usually ‘Gun Licences’ have been issued in the past for the people of
good character and social standing to safeguard their lives/valuable
property. However renewing such licences annually has become a
cumbersome process, where sanction/recommendations from numerous
authorities have to be obtained wasting time, energy and money. For
instance a ‘Registered Gun Licence holder’ to get his gun licence
renewed annually has to first go to the ‘Grama Niladhari’ and obtain a
letter of identification. This letter of identification has to be
produced before the ‘Divisional Secretary’. Thereafter the said letter
of identification with the Divisional Secretary’s endorsement has to be
handed over to the relevant Police Station with the application for
renewal of the gun licence.
The applicant has to wait for several days for a ‘Police Officer’ to
visit his residence/business premises and inspect the Fire arm.
Thereafter the applicant has to visit the Police Station to obtain a
letter of recommendation from the ‘Officer In Charge’ of the Police
Station addressed to the ‘Assistant Superintendent’ of the relevant
Police Division.
With this letter, the applicant has to visit the relevant ASP’s
office and handover the same to the officer handling the matter and
thereafter should visit the ASP’s Office to obtain his recommendation
letter.
Once these formalities are met, he has to visit the Chief Government
Agent of the Province/District and handover all documents initially and
visit his office once again to obtain the relevant Licence, after paying
the prescribed fee.
This long and time consuming procedure to get the legally issued ‘Gun
Licence’ renewed annually has become a very cumbersome and frustrating
exercise and needs change urgently to suite the requirements of the
present day .
Since gun license are issued to responsible people with a good social
standing whose records are already available with the relevant police
stations, a method should be implemented for the Police to issue the
relevant recommendation letters expeditiously rather than depending on
Grama Niladhari’s letter of introduction with the endorsement of the
Divisional secretary each year.
If the validity period of an issued gun license can be extended up to
two or three years it will be convenient for the licence holder.
In a country where a majority of criminal activities are reported to
be carried out using ‘illegal arms’ consisting of more sophisticated
equipment such as T-56’s etc it is absurd to see how difficult it is to
get an officially issued gun licence to a law-abiding citizen renewed
annually when majority of such arms consists of mere ‘shot guns’ and the
like equipment.
I hope that the urgent attention of the authorities will be drawn to
this matter, since law-abiding citizens of this country holding lawful
gun licences should be encouraged to do so and well protected by the
authorities rather than allowing/encouraging the society to go for
‘illegal arms’.
Indrajith Senadhira
The short-distance, SLTB bus service plied from the Kalutara main bus
stand to Veheragala area has stopped suddenly by the Kalutara depot
manager due to unknown reasons. This has cased much inconvenience to the
people of Payagala, Kachchagoda, Gabadagoda, Puwakgahawela and Kirimatta
areas.
A large number of commuters used the service. The depot also earned a
sizable income.
C M Kamburawala
Heavily crowded class-rooms make school teachers and principals
uncomfortable and much inconvenienced in teaching and classroom
management.
Most classes consist of students numbering more than 45 or nearly 50
where a lot of disciplinary and management problems arise and teachers
face untold hardships.
Class-teachers who teach serious subjects such as mathematics and
science are much reluctant and inconvenienced in marking exercise books
and written work of primary-level children whose parents expect their
kids’ books to be marked by teachers during the school hours.
When I talked to several primary level school teachers who work in
grades three, four and five came up with the ideas and complaints that
they have been made to work in crowded classes under pressure due to the
unbearable numbers of children in their classrooms.
Some principals are helpless due to the government’s policy of
recruiting pupils to schools which are so-called popular and privileged.
I would like to point out that the maximum student-number of a classroom
should limited to 25.
H L Sunil Shantha
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