My visit to Sri Lanka in 2015

Sri Lanka - Challenges of the New Generation
Jayadeva Hettiarachchy, September, 2015

Arrival:

Ceylon was the country that I left in 1980 and Sri Lanka is the new name of the country I visited recently. What is there in a name I reminisced as I arrived just after general election in the country on 27^th of September 2015 that had resulted in the overthrow of the previous ruling party by a new set of rulers? Since I had some local Sri Lankan rupees to spend during my stay in the country, I thought of utilizing my local money for my expenses rather than using US dollars. But I found that a dollar exchanged for 138 rupees, a significant jump of 23 Sri Lankan rupees from year 2012 when the exchange rate was only 115 rupees for a US dollar. I expected the country to be economically doing better after the end of the civil war; unfortunately US dollar appeared to be more stable than the Sri Lankan rupee at least in Sri Lanka. In my opinion, the economical challenges of the new generation of Sri Lanka appeared to rise above more than any other challenges. This, I thought, should be the number one important challenge of the new generation of Sri Lanka.

Wedding Drums:

Although it was a Sunday night that I landed in Sri Lanka and travelled from the airport to the hotel, the roads were severely crowded and jam-packed with vehicles. At the hotel where I stayed preparations were taking place for a wedding that was to take place on the following day. The hotel was crowded with relatives of the bride and the groom who had come to attend the wedding ceremony from all parts of the country. Although the country seems to be economically plummeting, economic problems seemed to have no bearing on the ongoing social and cultural activities. Marriage being the most important event in life, young men and women expect to have a grand wedding ceremony attended by hundreds of relatives and friends. They need to spend lots of money that they may not have, and those who attend those weddings too have to appear at their best attires whether they could afford such expenses or not. It goes without saying that the whole purpose of such grand weddings is to have a whole lot of fun and nothing but fun.

Traditional simple wedding ceremonies celebrated between families at home during my days in Sri Lanka inviting relatives and friends for a wedding ceremony conducted at home mostly in villages appear to have been altogether replaced by wedding ceremonies similar to “destination weddings” that take place in the developed world mostly among immigrants. Those grand weddings still tend to draw large number of people living in distant parts of the country. The attendees to these weddings unfortunately cannot walk to the weddings (like in the good old days of my time in Sri Lanka) or by three wheelers the most popular mode of transportation. They need to have their own cars or rentals for their transportation needs, hotel rooms reserved and paid for by them before they attend those weddings. In the hotel we stayed there were several such weddings happening almost on a weekly basis. Whether these pompous wedding ceremonies are an absolute necessity in a country that is economically going downhill, was a question that kept popping in my mind whenever I heard those loud wedding drums in the hotel where I stayed, and on the heavily crowded roads packed with vehicles not moving at all for several hours consuming petroleum that the country pays in foreign exchange with a negative foreign exchange balance. For me as an observer, it looked like a mindless activity. The young man and woman and the respective families could have had a much happier marriage ceremony in their hometowns away from the crowded city and hotel rooms without having to spend all that money which could have been used more productively. This is perhaps another challenge that most young Sri Lankans of the upcoming generation need to think about -- this in a way is one way of thinking "out-of-the-box".

Three-wheelers:

Although they are the most dangerous transportation methods, we had no choice but to use the three-wheelers to visit places within Colombo city during our first few days of stay in Colombo. This is because regular four-wheel-rentals or taxis are not efficient on the heavily congested roads while the three-wheelers could weave between other vehicles and lanes quickly and swiftly and take us to places without having to spend enormous amounts of time on commuting to places. Time and punctuality are important contributory factors for economic progress of any country, Sri Lanka included. Besides, we did not have all that time in our busy schedule to spend on the roads idling in the hot sun in traffic jams. One complaint most people that I talked to had was that they find it very difficult to travel even a few kilometers without spending sometimes hours in traffic jams in congested roads. I experienced it myself on the heavily congested roads in the morning when I had to spend at least a couple of hours to get out of Colombo on my way to Kandy. One person mentioned that he has been unable to visit his sick mother who lives only a few kilometers away from where he lives because of the time he has to spend on the congested road to see her.

Sri Lanka had 929,495 three wheelers registered by the end of 2014, according to data from the department of motor vehicles.  In July of 2015, 73,838 three wheelers have been registered thereby showing over one million three wheelers; evidently, three wheelers have become an important part of public transport network, during the night when buses stop operating (source: http://www.economynext.com/Sri_Lanka_three_wheeler_population_tops_one_million-3-2814-6.html).

Three wheelers also have provided a significant employment opportunity to over one million people of Sri Lanka; owning three-wheelers seems to be rapidly growing as an inexpensive way of owning a vehicle by the people who cannot afford to own regular automobiles. As a result, there are three wheelers that are metered taxis and three wheelers owned by people for day-to-day travel plus doing part-time taxi business. Unfortunately, although one million three wheelers provide employment opportunities to one million people, they also contribute significantly to slowing down the transportation system of the major cities as well as major highways of the country. Incidents of daily three-wheeler accidents make them to be one of the most dangerous means of transportation. There appears to be no planning in process to disallow three-wheeler transportation in major highways or any attempt to set minimum and maximum speed limits on highways with the result that the highways have become the slowest and most inefficient mode of transportation in the country.

There is no doubt that three wheelers have come to stay in Sri Lanka as a major source of public and private transportation needs. The chances are that the number of three wheelers imported from India to Sri Lanka will keep soaring in the future. The major problem however as I saw it is not the soaring numbers of three wheelers jamming the roads all over the country, but as to how they should be managed in such a way that they do not clog the highways and byways wasting valuable time and petroleum that consumes a large part of the foreign exchange of the country. The most efficient use of the available network of roads in the country by the growing number of vehicles including the three-wheelers is undoubtedly a top priority of the transportation system planning that should facilitate efficient and timely movement allowing no time to waste on the highways. This is another important challenge for the new generation of Sri Lanka. Without laying the foundation of an efficient transportation system all attempts to improve the overall economy of the country may not be productive. As I see, a systematic planning process for improving the road network system of the country that restrict the three-wheelers to certain roads and unclog the highways connecting major cities is of utmost importance and a top priority to improve the country’s economy and tourism as a sustainable industry.

Agri- Business:

My travel in the central and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka was undoubtedly a delightful experience. The evergreen landscape constantly reminded me of Philippines and Bali (Indonesia) or the geography and climate of Honduras of Central America. The rich soil with coconut plantations made me think that  Sri Lankans could do much better economically by utilizing the rich soil for cultivating more coconut trees in the vast areas of land currently underutilized and/or occupied by the jungle. This vast waste land provides an excellent opportunity for commercial enterprises to make long-term investments on large coconut cultivations to meet the production needs of desiccated coconuts as well as other coconut by-products for export purposes. These waste lands reminded me of the vast stretches of land in Kansas State, U.S.A advertised for the taking as "free land." Government could be leasing such land for productive use by private enterprises willing to invest time and energy with a vision for the future.

Thinking about a vision for the future, the highest ambition of most families during the time I lived in Sri Lanka was to make their boys and girls to be medical doctors, engineers or lawyers. Even the educational system promoted the same hierarchy by screening kids in 5th grade who did well in sciences from others who had no other choice but to do humanities. From those who were chosen to do sciences the students who did well in physical and biological sciences were selected to do medicine and engineering and dentistry. The rest had no other choice but to do general sciences like physics, botany, chemistry, zoology, veterinary science or agriculture. The wealthy parents sent their children to study law at the Law College in Colombo.  Only a few of the vast majority of students who had no other choice than to study arts and humanities competed successfully to be admitted to the one and only university of the country during my time, and their greatest ambition was to join the Civil Service (Ceylon Administrative Service), university teaching, or gain an executive position in the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Those who could not achieve any of these ambitions after graduation from the university had to be satisfied with a teaching position in a remote school or a government clerical job with the result that most of the graduates of the university ended up being government employees. In a way, it was like most unemployed young people in Colombo becoming three-wheel operators of today. They just followed the example of others taking the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, many young people who could have done much better in life may have joined the government employments in which they stagnated during the prime of their life doing just repeat business, most of the time commuting hours on public transportation systems not necessarily liking or being passionate about what they did in life. It is a challenge that the new generation face today to break this mind set by taking risks that will pay back with dividends later in life. However, choosing such a life-style and work involves dedication, determination and a will to do hard work and accomplish goals. I saw a few agricultural enterprises like Hayleys in Biyagama, Alawwa, and Ampare http://hayleysagriculture.com/hjs/vision-mission.html and CIC Agri Businesses in Pelwehera http://www.cicagri.com/index.php?page_cat=home.

In both these places farming of crops are done scientifically with a vision employing and training hard working people who are willing to learn the business of agriculture from farming to processing/production. Both companies are privately owned profit making enterprises exporting Sri Lankan products contributing significantly to Sri Lanka's GDP and training Sri Lankan workers to be productive.  They do set an example for other entrepreneurs interested in doing business in Sri Lanka. Admittedly, Sri Lanka has promoted coconut industry by establishing a coconut research institute as well as a ministry of coconut development and Janatha estate development. A few private companies like Adamjee Lukmanjee & Sons Ltd had been scientifically growing coconuts on a large scale and processing coconuts and exporting processed coconut products to foreign countries since mid-19th century.Source(http://www.adamjeelukmanjee.com/about-us/our-journey.html) There are few other innovative companies processing coconut products for the global market researching on adding value to coconut products beyond traditional use.

Understandably, most people do not have the money to invest in starting up new businesses like a coconut plantation. They would rather find a government job which pays them a monthly salary. This is one reason as to why about three million Sri Lankans are living as expatriates all over the world. Undoubtedly they do contribute significantly to uplift the GDP by bringing in foreign exchange to Sri Lanka. Systematic investment on start-up family business by earnings of expatriates could be one way expatriates could build a nest egg back in Sri Lanka while working and earning living in a foreign country. Such an investment in a family business could pay dividends eventually if done systematically.

Tourism

I stayed in the eastern coast of Sri Lanka in Batticaloa for 5 days in a hotel that fit my travel budget. Although Batticaloa is the poorest area of Sri Lanka there are a large number of luxurious hotels overlooking the ocean in Batticaloa, Pasikuda and Kalkuda beaches that provide tourists with all comforts, exotic food and superb house-keeping facilities. Although flies and mosquitoes are not a problem inside the hotel rooms, they are plentiful in the open air, especially where food is served in open spaces. Hotels spray chemicals to keep the insects away especially if you complain about their presence inside your room. Most economical hotels do not have central air and heat for the entire hotel but only in a few rooms equipped with heating and cooling units fixed inside the rooms as well as hot water heating units fixed in the bathrooms for bathing.

Tourism being one of the important GDP generators, it is one area that needs systematic and coordinated planning between the government and private companies catering for tourism. While the government owned and maintained tourist hotels have services that are far below the expectations of the average tourists, there is a need to keep the tourists satisfied and willing to come back and give good reviews of their stay in Sri Lanka. The privately owned hotels seem to be doing excellent advertizing promoting their facilities and services on the Internet. Nevertheless, today's tourists who are mostly retired professionals are very conscious about what they get out of the packages they buy. Some of them shop around for the best value for the price they pay. Bad reviews regarding bad services and bad food has a way of hurting tourist business anywhere in the world. Some reviews regarding poor service, bad food and dishonest tourist drivers catch the eye of most tourists. Responses given by the patrons to reviews are also an important aspect of maintaining a good image of the business by organizations that value their service. In most moderately priced hotels I stayed during this and my previous several visits to Sri Lanka, the service at the front desk was great but the food and the room service left much to be desired. In one rest house where I stayed there was only one waiter to serve all the guests who were waiting to have their dinner to be served on time. According to official reports, tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka exceeded 1.5 Million in 2014 and is expected to exceed 2.5 Million by 2016 (source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Sri_Lanka#Tourism_industry).
There is therefore certainly a need for Sri Lankan Tourist Board and the private companies to join hands in providing a quality service not only promoting the completive spirit among the tourist hotels to attract tourists but also those tourists to be satisfied with their experience of a fun vacation that Sri Lanka is capable of providing.

Concluding Thoughts:

Lastly, it goes without saying that the political stability of a country is of paramount importance to the economic and social growth of a country. Sri Lanka has had too many civil wars as well as political upheavals that present serious challenges to the new generation in the years to come. A genuine understanding of the evils of holocaust could be a starting point for a new beginning of the new generation. We may not be able to solve all human problems, but it is far better to learn to manage them than be mired in them.