MONEY CIRCULATION DOWN

If we renovate tanks the villages will benefit from these projects. The contracts to desilt them will be given to the villagers themselves.

The Prime Minister made these remarks at the launch of Gam Peraliya in Nikaweratiya yesterday morning.

“Gam Peraliya is meant for the development of the whole country. This is the second phase of our economic development. We intend to reach out to the villages. We have experienced drought for four seasons in numerous villages. We did not get sufficient rain this time as well. As a result, economy has collapsed. There is no money in circulation. It is visible. There is a drop in the sale of consumer goods. There is 30 percent drop in economy in this case. Money circulation has dropped in the entire country. Therefore, those in other provinces are also unable to do anything. There is not enough money,” he said.

He said some areas have got water to cultivate essential crops but that is hardly efficient.

“This is why we decided to focus on villages. If we renovate tanks, the villages will benefit from these projects. The contracts to de-slit them will be given to villagers themselves. The soil collected from de-silting will be given to farmers themselves. They can earn something from that. At the same time the concessionary loans schemes will be launched for the rural folk. Money would be pumped into the villages by these projects,” the Prime Minister added. He also assured that infrastructure facilities will be enhanced as well.

The Prime Minister revealed that new laws will be brought in to ensure that the farmers will benefit from it. He said this is called Wevu Govisathu Kirima (Handing over the responsibility of maintaining tanks to the farmers in the villages).

Coming up with another plan which government intends to introduce, he said government intends to provide assistance to those farmers who are willing to cultivate organic paddy.

The Prime Minister said Gam Peraliya is a second phase of government’s programme to stabilize the economy. “First phase of this programme was to settle the debts. There were no funds to pay the loan instatements when we took over.“we would have to go back to the era where only two yards of cloth if we were not able to find funds to settle debts. We find some funds but had to increase taxes to find some more funds. We were criticized heavily for this,” he also said.

The Prime Minister added that tax structure will be changed as the government feels that some taxes are unfair.

At the same time he said government will also focus on large scale development projects especially for enhancing exports. Hambantota port public private partnership, Mattala International Airport public private partnership, LNG power plant in Hambntota and the Oil refinery will be part of this plan.

Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera said 1,300 tanks will be renovated by November this year under the Gamperaliya programme. He also said toilets will be provided to 6,893 schools in the country while electricity will be provided to 100,000 houses. In addition he said the places of religious worship would also be developed. Minister Samaraweera said Rs. 80 billion had been allocated for the development of villages.