Man with a vision for rural development

My oldest memory of Amaradasa Gunawardena goes back to the days when we were students reading the magazine “Sanskruthi” that carried important articles on Sinhala literature. One of its editors was Amaradasa Gunawardena. My personal acquaintance with him began with an official engagement when I was appointed to the Polonnaruwa District as the Additional Government Agent in February 1975.

The gentleman occupying the Government Agent’s Office in the Kachcheri was Amaradasa Gunawardena - a simple, soft-spoken, friendly person. The formalities of a newcomer disappeared soon, leading to a brotherly relationship. I found this attitude was a common narrative in him extended to clergy, politicians, subordinates and the public. In time, his qualities of informality, friendliness and brotherly love extended to our families in abundance, ably navigated by Mallika, his loving wife and children.

Polonnaruwa, a district of irrigated colonization schemes in the main, with a comparatively lesser number of purana villages, opened vast opportunities for him to focus on people’s needs, based on his cumulative experience as an Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services and Land Development Officer. He carved his way to be an excellent Government Agent in an agricultural district that faced challenges in natural disasters, irrigation, land administration and agricultural planning and implementation.

He wished to be explorative in development issues and concurrently people-centric. Not many are aware that he was one of the district officials who thought of the Maduru Oya Scheme. He explored the old dam sites, ruined canal systems with parliamentarian Leelaratana Wijesinghe and General Sepala Attygalle, Colonel Prasanna Dahanayaka et al. His visits to the old sites, Yakkkure village, enjoying kurakkan pittu and honey at the tiny Yakkure village school with the people showed his enthusiasm to combine exploration while being rural folk-centric. He organised the Thamankaduva Milk Producers’ Cooperative Society and was its President until 1980. Value addition in milk, infrastructure building for milk farmers in an organized manner resulted from this exercise.

This grassroots involvement was observed in other cultural and religious activities too, which was best calibrated in the organisation of the Poson Perahara with public support that attracted thousands of pilgrims who visited Polonnaruwa the day after Poson Poya.

He organised a group “Ape Kattiya” with those who served in Polonnaruwa that later did development projects in the district. While in Polonnaruwa he was into broadcasting Sinhala radio programmes on socio-cultural subjects.

From Polonnaruwa, he joined the Ministry of Plan Implementation and was the Director in charge of the Job Bank Scheme and coordinated the instant lottery which has expanded its scope greatly now. He was later appointed as the Secretary to the State Ministry of Power and Energy and Deputy High Commissioner in Australia. The Sandeshaya programme he initiated while in Australia was a great attraction then.

His attachment to his university life was reflected in the organisation of the Past Residents of Ramanathan Hall of the University of Peradeniya annually. He was the first President of the State Administrative Services Association (SASA) serving for five years and was instrumental in initiating its branches in outstations.

Upon retirement, he did yeoman service leading several voluntary organizations. He was the President of the Sri Lanka Council for the Blind, the Sri Lanka China Society, and the Sri Lanka Belgium Association. He served the visually impaired, mobilized foreign assistance for a large number of grassroots projects around the country such as pre-schools, drinking water schemes, offered scholarships to needy students, houses for Tsunami affected, etc. President Maithripala Sirisena honoured Amaradasa Gunawardena by conferring him with the ‘Deshamanya’ honour in 2017 for his services to the nation.

He was active in planning and implementing these activities and was a ‘Supervisor Extraordinary’ to ensure the projects were completed and handed over to the clientele punctually. Up to his last breath, he was pursuing these activities. His departure created a large void but fortunately, he had developed a second-tier in all these organizations for sustainable continuity.

He departed a year back, but proving the truth of “Roopam jeerathi machchaanam, Naama goththam najeerathi.” Even in his absence, his name will ever glow in society for the service he rendered as a public officer and humanitarian.

May he attain Nibbana.

Austin Fernando