Protests galore

Public demonstrations highlighting various demands are being reported in the media and have become almost a daily happening. The protestors display placards, shout slogans, and obstruct traffic, becoming a public nuisance; they seem to consider that, the greater the obstructions the higher the possibilities of winning their demands. The obstructions are meant to embarrass relevant public servants/politicians and to force decisions in their favour. Meanwhile, the police are responsible for ensuring routine life to ordinary citizens and ensure smooth flow of traffic; however, when the situation becomes uncontrollable, they are compelled to use force to disperse protestors.

HNDE student’s protest

On 29 October, some HNDE students protested on the streets and moved to the University Grants Commission offices at Ward Place, demanding that authorities accept their diploma in accountancy to be recognised as equivalent to a degree. The students obstructed traffic for hours and refused to move in spite of Police requests; they had to be water cannoned, tear gassed and finally were baton charged. The clash reportedly injured eight people – including four female students and a police constable. After the attack, 39 students including five females and two monks, were arrested.

After the incident, the Minister for Higher Education Lakshman Kiriella is reported to have said that the police attack on students was “highly uncalled for” and could have been avoided if the Director General of the Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technological Education conveyed the Ministry’s decision the previous day to heed all their demands.

The so-called decision was based on the previous government’s decision to accept equivalency to a degree, on extension of the course period from three to four years, but rejected by the Minister for Higher Education. Was the recent decision based on evaluation into course contents, qualifications of lecturers, facilities available and the input expected from the students?

One would recall that some years after Swabasha education was introduced in the 1970s, the University of London and the Institute of Engineers, London refused to recognise the local engineering degree. The politicians under student pressure may accept the HNDE as equivalent to a degree and would enable students to get Government jobs, but how about quality?

HNDE equivalency in the past

Getting degree equivalency to HNDE is nothing new. Some years ago, HNDE students demanded the same and were able to get acceptance with a passage of a Bill in the Parliament. The students were supported by two MPs who themselves were HNDE recipients in the past.

Malabe Private 

Medical College

The Private Medical College at Malabe has been subjected to regular protests and attacks by the medical students of various universities for selling the medical degree and having insufficient hospital facilities. But have the Medical students looked at their own medical faculties in Rajarata and Batticaloa?

The Rajarata Medical Faculty in Anuradhapura for the past years has only one full-time professor. The Faculty of Healthcare Sciences of the Eastern University, Batticaloa, established in 2004, offers degree courses in medicine, surgery and nursing. The faculty is currently located in a former paddy store taken over from the Paddy Marketing Board. The Cabinet of Ministers in October 2015 approved constructing a new building complex costing $ 47.3 million. The completion of facilities will take minimum of five years. Meanwhile, how about the quality of the doctors produced from 2004 to 2020?

Purchase of paddy from farmers

During the past few months, almost every day, the media showed farmers queuing for days with their paddy stocks to be sold to the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB). The PMB purchases paddy at Rs.50 and Rs.45 for samba and nadu. The cost of production of paddy calculated by the Department of Agriculture at Rs.32.50 includes the cost of farmer input, which means the farmer makes over 50% profit by selling paddy at Rs.50.

In current paddy cultivation, land preparation and harvesting is mechanised and farmer’s input is minimal. Meanwhile, farmers receive heavily subsidised fertiliser. The current paddy purchase price was fixed by the Government as a gimmick for attracting votes and is not sustainable, while CWE sells imported rice at Rs.60 per kilogramme (earlier Rs.50). At the Rs.50 purchase price, the selling price of rice should be around Rs.90 per kilo considering that 1.5Kg of paddy is needed to produce a kilo of rice, plus the milling, handling and transport costs. No wonder the farmers wish to sell all their paddy stocks to PMB. The protests were meant to highlight the great injustice made to the poor hard-working farmers.

Low selling price of rubber

During the past few months demonstrations are conducted by rubber farmers regarding poor prices paid for their rubber, which is linked to the export price. Meanwhile, the country is near to full utilisation of its entire local rubber production. In fact, we import some grades of rubber. Most local rubber latex is used in the manufacture of gloves and Dipped Products, the major manufacturer, produces over 5% of the world’s requirement of rubber gloves. The world’s solid rubber tyre market is dominated by Sri Lanka.

Unfortunately, around two years ago, following the infamous Rathupaswala affair, Dipped Products was accused of polluting ground water in the region (high pH or acidic). Even when explained, authorities refused to accept that a rubber production using latex cannot be conducted under acidic conditions, which would coagulate the latex. Also, even if a pollutant was discharged, the pollution would follow the water path and cannot pollute the lands beyond the hills.

Finally, the factory had to be closed and was moved elsewhere. A similar attack was made on the company’s factory at Hanwella. The protest ended with the sacrifice of a senior police officer. The machinery ordered by the company to establish another factory was diverted to Thailand, who gladly accepted the facility.

Today, two years after the factory had moved out, people of Rathupaswala continue to complain that their ground water is unsuitable for drinking due to acidity, which is the result of high cabook present in the area. If the production units using rubber latex was allowed to expand, the country would have earned foreign exchange; producers would have accepted the entire production of latex and offered a reasonable price, irrespective of the world market.

B. Onion farmers

Cultivators of B. Onions are protesting against low prices, around Rs.40 per kg paid to them in the wholesale markets. The Government levied high import duty and customers are forced to pay around Rs.140 per kilo, which shot past Rs.200 with the rains. The huge gap between purchase and selling prices is due to the poor quality of the local produce. The farmers uproot immature onions and demand immediate sale of their produce. Immature onions rot easily, reduce weight on drying, and wholesalers and retailers are forced to keep hefty margins for losses and labour for removing the rotten produce daily prior to offering to customers.

Decades ago, Jaffna farmers used to hang their onion crop over poles to dry, allowing prices to rise after the harvest. When imported onions could have been available to customers around Rs.50 – 60 a kilo, the public are forced to pay exorbitant prices due to the lethargy of local farmers who only resort to protests.

Tea plantation workers

The tea plantation Trade Unions demand a salary Rs.1,000 per day for their workers, as a government organisation calculated the monthly expenses of an estate family as exceeding Rs.33,000, assuming only a single family member as being employed. Some years ago in plantations, both husband and wife were employed. When workers started accepting outside employment, employers declared that unless at least one family member is employed in the estate, they would lose housing rights.

If the plantation companies were to use the same argument, as most companies are running at a loss, the workers would need to contribute a 12-hour working day.

Garbage dumping

Public protests continue in Colombo and outstation over the dumping of garbage. The Government and the local authorities hope to settle the problem in the most expensive manner, possibly as they too could get a share. The current proposal is to transport garbage to Puttalam to fill voids formed by lime extraction for cement manufacture.

None wish to look at the most convenient solution i.e. converting the garbage into compost and use it for cultivation. The Colombo and Gampaha Districts produce the most garbage and also have the most uncultivated paddy fields. The fields could be cultivated with paddy, vegetables or grass to feed cattle, thereby producing fresh milk for the populace. In the outstations, compost could replace some of the subsidised fertiliser and would help reduce kidney diseases.

Housing to slum dwellers

The previous government’s housing program for the poor who occupied commercially valuable lands close to Colombo’s commercial area received commendations as well as brick-bats. Even after months, some new house owners continued to protest, but to a lesser degree. Most occupants’ previous housing had electricity, some had a document from a previous government giving a sense of legality. People were relocated into tall multi-storied complexes costing Rs. 6-7 million. They were expected to pay Rs. 1 million which was expected to cover the maintenance costs of the housing.

The new Government criticises the efforts of the previous government for not having had a dialogue with the slum-dwellers. However, they expect to continue re-housing and have identified nearly 80,000 families living in the proposed Megapolis region. Re-housing of an unsuitable house owner would cost between Rs.4-8 million. In addition, the complexes need to be maintained which includes pumping water to individual units, supplying electricity to public areas as corridors and lifts, maintenance of lifts, water, and the administrative staff, which are expensive and need to be settled. Under the condominium law, the above costs are passed over to residents, but will the new residents agree to pay? It’s more likely they will refuse, claiming to be poor. But most complexes are located in commercial areas with high employment possibilities. Unless the new residents are trained and guided towards available employment, the burden of maintenance, in addition to capital costs and their interests, would fall on to taxpayers.

Housing for the Moragahakanda displaced

When lands were acquired for the Moragahakanda project, some residents were earmarked for displacement but not moved out due to non-urgency. When attempts are now made to move them, residents claim that during the waiting period their children had gotten married, resulting in 350 new families. The President, acting as the Mahaweli Minister, proposed giving separate lands and housing for the new families which the Cabinet approved. Will this be a forerunner policy for future resettlements?

Humane view of 

public protests

The public takes to the roads to highlight their long unsolved problems and need to be looked in a humane point of view, although some of the demands are downright unfair. The country invests large sums on roads and rural folk believe their roads are neglected. Large sums are allocated to local governments and to individual councillors, but most funds are directed towards their personal wishes that benefit them, neglecting the needy.

The Government needs to set up a means of addressing problems raised by protestors. They should be handled by competent staff, and when requests are unreasonable or cannot be attended immediately need to be clearly informed as such.

Under the World University Rankings, most our universities hold positions beyond 10,000. The Government has already proposed to setup an Accreditation Council to ascertain and improve quality of the universities. Ascertaining the quality standard of a course needs to be carried out by an organisation established for the purpose and all degrees and diplomas in education institutes, public or private, must be graded considering the course content, qualification and commitment of lecturers, student input and physical resources dedicated for the course. Ascertaining the quality of a course or the equivalency to a degree cannot be a political decision.

The right to protest by an individual or a group needs to be accepted, without damaging the rights of other individuals. It is well known that protesting persons are misguided by groups with sinister motives, who wish for a few deaths or at least a few injured protestors, to enhance their own agendas. Hopefully, current protests by the HNDE students would draw guidelines for protestors’ rights and the action limits on Police to safeguard law, the public rights for road usage and to protect public property.