Need for efficient rationing system as in the past

Our ‘news’ is full of tales of despair, desperation and frustration. Our administration and representatives of the people continue to fiddle ineffectively; the burning, sadly, has already occurred.

On a recent visit to a supermarket I was surprised to see that the shelves still gleam brightly with imported fruits. No doubt, those luxury items consumed by a miniscule segment of our population, still remain too.

During the war years (1939—’45) an efficient system of rationing for rice and essentials, was introduced and this was administered by a Food Commissioner, the legendary O.E. Goonetilleke, who ended up as our first Ceylonese Governor-General. As far as I remember this system was so efficient that it continued into the 70’s. Each family had a ration book with coupons and essentials – mainly rice was obtained on a weekly basis from a chain of unpretentious co-op stores, far more effective than the present-day Sathosa.

There is a crying need for this system right now. All those redundant employees in Government departments could be utilised to run these co-ops.

Again, in those desperate times in the 70’s we were instructed to replace rice meals twice a week with some other staple. We grew manioc in our garden, and I still yearn for those meals of steaming hot manioc, with its accompaniments.

Another essential step is to eliminate waste. A glaring example is the hospitality sector. I dread to think of what happens to those piles of food left over from sumptuous buffets. This should be distributed among the needy or even old peoples’ homes. I certainly feel there should be a re-think on these sumptuous spreads and the varieties of animal proteins limited.

When I was younger I felt that life would have been far less complicated if we were yet another state of India. The way things are going, this seems a distinct possibility!

Premini Amerasinghe Nawala