Impact of past a present regional development on the proposed future physical development of sri lan

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR PREPERATION OF NATIONAL PHYSICAL PLANNING POLICY - 2001

Centre for National Physical Planning [CNPP] Urban Development Authority [UDA] National Physical Planning Department [NPPD]

REPORT NO. 01

Impact of Past & Present Regional Development on the Proposed Future Physical Development of Sri Lanka

By Dr. Locana Gunaratna

August 2001

PREFACE

The Presidential Task Force recommended in 1997 that all physical development activities in the country should be guided by a well prepared National Physical Development Plan, which in turn should be based on a National Physical Planning Policy.

The Centre for National Physical Planning (CNPP) was established in February 2000 to assist the National Physical Planning Department in the preparation of a National Physical Planning Policy and Plan. 路.The Centre used the services of several consultant to collect the necessary background material and prepare reports, which would be of assistance in formulating the Policy and the Plan. These reports were prepared at the CNPP as a collaborative effort between the Urban Development Authority (UDA), and the National Physical Planning Department (NPPD). However the individual authors take the responsibility for the 'contents of their reports.

Over the last 18 months our Team has made a major effort, for first time in Sri Lanka, to establish necessary parameters to prepare a workable and pragmatic physical development framework which is a long felt need in the country. Since independence successive governments in Sri Lanka have implemented many programmes in order to develop the country. However the .basic objectives of these projects and programmes are yet to be achieved.

These reports were used as background sources on various sectors in the formulation of the National Physical Planning' Policy. This information was supplemented by information gathered from workshops and discussions held with the different sector agencies.

The National Physical Planning' .Policy has been formulated as required by the amendments to the Town and CO\:1.Qtry Planning Act No. 49 in August 2000. The

Draft Policy will be presented to the political authorities, professional institutions, the private sector and NGOs in the country. Once approved, it will constitute the basis for the National Physical Plan and the implementation strategy.

I am pleased to introduce this report, which examines the Impact of Past & Present Regional Development on the Proposed Future Physical Development of Sri Lanka. It has been prepared by Dr. Locana Gunaratna, a well known Senior Town Planner and a Charted Architect who is in a specialist in Physical Planning. Other reports in the series as given in the list are available at the National Physical Planning Department, 5th Floor, "C", Sethsiripaya, Battaramulla.

JML Jayasekara Team Leader/Project Director Centre for National Physical Planning (CNPP) 120/10, SLAAS Building, 2nd Floor Wijerama Mawatha Colombo 07

Report No. Title & Author

1.

Impact of Past & Present Regional Development on the Proposed Future Physical Development of Sri Lanka Dr. locana Gunaratna

2.

Population and Settlement Distribution Pattern of Sri Lanka - 2030 Mr. l. H. Indrasiri

3.

Land Use Changes in Sri Lanka Dr. Percy Silva

4.

Economic Policies Affecting Development Mr. H. P. Wijewardena

5. Human Resources Development Dr. (Mrs.) E. K. Masinghe

6.

Human Resources - Human Capital Development Mr. R. Reffai

7.

Social Factors, Forces and Conditions Affecting Development Dr. M. W. Amarasiri de Silva

8.

Coastal and Oceanic Resources Dr, J. M. P. K. Jayasinghe

9.

Spatial Policy for the Power and Energy Sector in Sri Lanka Mr. M: K. Chandrasekara

10.

Agriculture Sector, Issues, Policies and Strategies Dr. S. Somasiri

11.

Environmental Pollution Issues & Remedial Measures Dr, Ravi Pereira

12.

Impact of Climate and Climatic Changes Dr. A. W. Mohottala

13,

Water Resources Development Mr. A. Nanayakkara

14.

Infrastructure Development Dr. Srilal Perera

15.

Highways & Railways Development Dr. Srilal Perera

16.

Urban Infrastructure & Community Participation Mr. G. A. P H. Ganepo/a

17.

Infrastructure In Northern and Eastern Provinces Mr. M. Supiramanium

18.

Redefining Urban Centres and Urbanization in Sri Lanka Mr. L. H. Indrasiri

19.

Environmental Protection and Area Network Prof. Tissa Herath

20.

Industrial Sector Dr. R. Rameezdeen

CONTENTS

Page No.

Introduction

1

The Spatial Context

1

1. Regional Development: 1931 - 1956 2

2.

3.

4.

Pre-Independence Strategies 2 Post-Independence Strategies

6

Implementation and Central Administration

7

Decentralized Agencies

8

Local Government

11

Spatial Impact

14

Regional Development: 1956 - 1977

14

Strategies 14 Implementation

19

National Planning

21

Spatial Planning

22

Spatial Impact

26

Regional Development: 1977 - 1999

27

Pre-Insurrection Strategies: 1977 - 1988

27

Village Expansion

28

Dry Zone Development

28

Post-Insurrection Strategies 1988 – 1999

29

Implementation

30

Miscellaneous Projects

30

Local Authorities

31

Provincial Councils

35

Mahaweli Project

38

Miscellaneous Projects

40

Some Proposals

41

The Third Land Commission

42

Conclusion

An Overview or Spatial Change

End Notes

44

44

48

IMPACT OF PAST AND PRESENT REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT ON THE PROPOSED FUTURE PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SRI LANKA

INTRODUCTION

The Spatial Context

During 'he ancient period of Sri Lanka's history, the economy was mainly based on agriculture There was trade with the outside world but on the whole, production was for consumption. Most or the people lived in the Dry Zone of the island which constitutes ~No-thirds of the land area. They farmed the land with boldly conceived irrigation systems consisting of numerous reservoirs and canal networks. Archaeological remains indicate that the large cities were located in the central plains of the Dry Zone and that the Wet Zone and its hills were left under forest cover and largely unpopulated. This was ecologically very sound because the rarest cover in the Wet Zone hills protected the upper catchments or the main rivers that Rowed through the Dry Zone and fed the reservoirs and irrigation systems.

The economy, land use and population distribution changed dramatically during the four and a half centuries or colonial rule. Agriculture for domestic consumption gave way gradually to plantation produce for 'empire' exports. The bulk of the population shifted from the Dry Zone to the Wet Zone where most of the colonial plantation activities became concentrated. The ancient cities and the irrigation systems in the Dry Zone went gradually to ruin. A new system of towns emerged with the capital in Colombo on the South West coast. The secondary urban centres which were radially linked by communication routes to Colombo were mostly all located in the Wet Zone, leaving the rest of the country poorly served with infrastructure.

The spatial distribution of urban places and their skewed radial linkages to Colombo by transport infrastructure is in fact the backbone of the national spatial structure. It was never intended to specifically benefit the majority of the Sri Lankan people. On the contrary its purpose, developed with military force by three successive colonial powers over more than four centuries, was primarily to function as an extraction mechanism.

Benefits went to small minorities of people in urban places, increasing progressively from the small towns to the larger. The largest gains at the national level went to colonial interests and the local elite they sponsored in Colombo. The ultimate beneficiary was by intention the colonial metropolitan centre in Europe.

The inheritance of this type of a distorted spatial structure was not peculiar to Sri Lanka. The structure is in fact typical of many small agrarian ex-colonial dependencies and contains two special distinguishing features. One is the skewed pattern itself referred to as a 'dendritic' structure. The other is that the commercial capital is a port city which is very much larger in population and areal extent than any of the other towns. This feature is referred to as 'primacy'.

1

While the inheritance of dendritic structures and primate cities is common many third world countries, there is a geographic aspect which was peculiar to Sri Lanka.

Infrastructure and most of the population had become concentrated under the colonial influence in the, Wet Zone which contained the major hills. The colonial plantations, however, which were until recently large land holdings, created by felling forest in the upper catchments of the, major rivers by foreign companies occupied considerable extents or Wet Zone lands. Most of the remaining Wet Zone land in the upper elevations needed to be kept in forest, while in the middle and lower elevations the land unsuited for export-oriented plantation activities had been cultivated intensively by small holders with food crops for domestic consumption. There was a severe population pressure on available Wet Zone agricultural land. It was therefore considered ecologically unsound to cultivate any more of the Wet Zone land.These problems led to recognizing the need to irrigate and settle the Dry Zone.

The foregoing provides a brier sketch of the spatial context within which indigenous development efforts began in the early 20th century. These efforts made over a seventyyear period are examined closely in the text that follows.

The period is divided into three parts for the purposes of this study. The first commences with the introduction of the Donoughmore constitution in 1931, when indigenous development efforts began. The sub-period stretches through 'independence' in 1948 till 1956 when, with a new government, some major policy changes took place.

The second sub-period was one of introversion, which ended with the liberalization of the economy after the' general elections of 1977. The third sub-period begins then and is taken to last till the end of 1999 for referential convenience.

1. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT 1931- 1956

Pre- Independence Strategies

Sri Lankan agitation for constitutional reform and political freedom were answered to a limited extent by the introduction of the Donoughmore Constitution in 1931. By that

time a development strategy was well articulated in the minds of a few Sri Lankan leaders. Central to this strategy was the development of agriculture and food production for domestic consumption. Although surprising to think so now, it was a very controversial strategy at that time. Its principal proponent was D.S. Senanayake, the Minister of Agriculture in the newly formed legislative chamber, the State Council, and who was later to become the first Prime Minister of Independent Sri Lanka in 1948 .

The proposed development strategy was not based on any Western models of that time, and perhaps for that reason it was criticized in the legislative chamber by the Right as well as the Left. Nevertheless, the enactment of the Land Development Ordinance in 1935, its principal legal

2

instrument. signaled the beginnings of its acceptance It was a dear and articulate strategy:-

' It is manifest, then that the bare 20 percent, which forms the extent under crops in this island is not something of which this country can boast", we shall find it necessary to enlarge our area under cultivation at least threefold to maintain our existing population. When we contemplate that of the 20 percent now cultivated, only about a quarter.. is devoted to the production of food crops, the gravity of our situation may be more justly apprehended ." while on the one hand the British Government endeavored to foster the indigenous agriculture, British unofficial enterprise, aided by British capital, conceived the idea of an expanded agriculture of products for an export market situated abroad, " Agriculture in Ceylon, hitherto, directed towards utilizing the soil for the production of immediate means of sustenance, received a new bias, and was now organized so as to produce crops that would exchange in the world's markets for money ". the benefits of this new direction of agricultural activity chiefly accrued to shareholders scattered allover the world, that in the course of the transformation ,. a new class of landless villagers has arisen oblivious to his agricultural traditions and dependent for his very means of sustenance on the prosperity of what in our agricultural economy are called "major products" ". So long as a little Wealth trickled down to them through the organization of these industries, the native population seemed content to swagger in" an air of prosperity.

How fictitious a prosperity founded upon such dependence can be ... The danger that lurks in an agricultural policy mainly directed towards the preparation of products for an export market over which the country can have no control has been amply demonstrated路". It is clear that a reconstruction of our agriculture structure must be based upon an enlargement of the scope and extent of the country's food production. ,. "

1

There also appears to have been little concern with economic growth per se, but a greater preoccupation with the general upliftment of the majority of the Sri Lankan people, namely the peasants in their rural habitat. A statement made in 1927 by a British Colonial Secretary (Clifford) "the bringing into existence of a prosperous selfsupporting and self-respecting multitude or peasant proprietors" was taken up as the principal objective of a new land policy.

It is relevant to note that this development strategy had a marked and explicit 'spatial' content. It encouraged in the Wet Zone, decentralization by fostering village expansion for food production It envisaged. what was referred to as 'colonization', an extension of the population spread from

3

the Wet Zone to the Dry Zone. The strategy was surprisingly articulate even as regards environmental aspects, though stated only in broad terms:-

" ... the settlement of peasants on the land has taken the form of village expansion on the one hand, and of colonization on the other ... Colonization indeed is fast becoming an economic necessity... We have recognized ... that one effective method of dealing with the problems is by making available to the peasantry more land than they have hitherto had opportunities of acquiring. But it is well to recognize that the distribution of population in the various parts of this country is such that migration from the over populous zones to the less crowded areas will soon become not a matter of choice but a grave necessity ... We must at no distant date reconcile ourselves to this course or be content to suffer the pinch of poverty ... it is of importance to remember the part played in the conservation of water by the forests of this country. With the evidence daily accumulating of the wisdom of our forefathers we need scarcely doubt that it was not merely the idea of making the mountain country difficult to approach by the foreign invader that caused them to preserve unfelled and uncleared the dense vegetation of their mountain slopes. We may readily believe that they deliberately left these untouched in order to provide that abundant supply of water in which they 2

might draw for the benefit of man ... .

Here then were the essentials of a bold, indigenous and articulate development strategy, formulated at the centre of power no doubt, but compassionate and responsive to the immediate as well as the long term needs of the then politically mute, poorest sections of the population. It indicates a deliberate rejection of popular Western models of external trade orientation emphasizing economic growth and also the superficial glamour of bustling modern industrial metropolises, in favor of a homegrown egalitarian, rural development model. It also contained a romantic vision of regaining the splendor of an ancient but extant culture which had been dimmed by centuries of neglect and colonial domination. It attempted to arouse a dormant pioneering spirit, to

rebuild the ancient reservoirs and irrigation systems in the Dry Zone and re-settle that part of the country.

In the mid 19th Century the British had begun to find remarkable evidence in the Dry Zone of the ancient Sri Lankan cities and some of the larger irrigation reservoirs, in ruins and covered by jungle. Restoration of one of the reservoirs had been undertaken at the turn of the Century, more perhaps for archaeological interest. But, restoration work on reservoirs in general was half-hearted and sporadic. An utilitarian colonial regime, committed to a laissez faire economic policy could find no reason to

4

expend resources on restoring ancient reservoirs in the malarial Dry Zone jungles of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan leaders had been highlighting not merely food production for domestic consumption but the plight of the peasantry. The Report of the "Land Development Committee" of the " Ceylon Agricultural Society" (1917) was also quite articulate on these matters. But, no heed was paid by the colonial Government. However, the dependent colonial economy of the country received a rude and prolonged shock in the form of food shortages during the First World War - one of the prime contributions to some serious concern for domestic food production on the part of the colonial government. 3 The depression in the plantation export industries following the War gave continuing support to domestic food production policies.

In the early 1920's, the British made a number of attempts to use private capital to develop Dry Zone land for food production but these failed badly. Thus the restoration of ancient reservoirs was continued at public expense through the agency of the Irrigation Department. But Clifford, the Colonial Secretary was pessimistic about Dry Zone Colonization, and in the food production effort. The accent was placed on increasing the agricultural output of the Wet Zone. Nevertheless, the basic technical and administrative machinery necessary for implementing a development strategy requiring the reclamation of the Dry Zone was available in embryonic form when the Donoughmore Constitution was adopted in 1931. The Land Settlement Ordinance came into the statute book that same year. The Agriculture Department was re-vamped and redirected, and with the new Land Development Ordinance, the indigenous Sri Lankan Development strategy began to be translated into action.

It should be noted that the new education policy that emerged during this period also was part and parcel of this development strategy. The new Constitution in 1931 made it possible for there to be an elected Minister of Education. This position was occupied from 1931 to 1947 by a Sri Lankan, C.W.W. Kannangara. The Education Committee which was chaired by him published a report in 1943. It recommended, among other

things, that education be made free of charge at all levels, and that the language medium of education in Primary Schools should be the' mother-tongue'.

Free education became a reality in 1945 with the passing of a Bill introduced in the State Council by Kannangara. Vernacular instructions were also realized a few year's later. These measures helped to broad base access to education particularly in the rural areas, increasing the literacy levels and political awareness of the bulk of the people who were in the villages.

This indigenous Sri Lankan development strategy dating from the early 1930s was ahead of its time by almost half a century .The strategy and the consequent development effort should be recognized as the original fore-runner and trail blazer even for the newly emerging Western School of planning thought. In this school which has gained some strength today, the emphases in the development effort are placed inter-alia on domestic

5

agriculture and the in situ provision of education, health and other basic facilities for the rural poor. Friedmann and Douglass who are among the piof1eering scholars of this Western school, articulating in 1978 the salient features of a "new" regional planning strategy for Asian Countries, state:

" Agriculture should be regarded as a leading or "propulsive;' sector in the economy The social efficiency of investments in agriculture is thus assumed to be high (particularly with regard to the productivity of land) and capable of generating

significant

multipliers

in

agro

industries,

commerce,

transportation, and construction Attaining self-sufficiency in domestic food 4

production should be regarded as a high priority objective. . . ,,

These, it will be seen. were in fact some of the distinguishing features of the preIndependence Sri Lankan development strategy It should however be observed that this strategy saw no role whatsoever for urban places in the development effort. This omission and its consequences will be discussed more fully later in this Study.

Based on available land use statistics for 19L16 (as published in the 1962 Census of Agriculture) the Wet Zone's agricultural acreage is estimated to have been, 3.053,895.

The Wet Zone's rural population (from data in. Table 27, Statistical Abstract 1985) is estimated. to have been 4,233,725. A relatively high agricultural density of 1.39 persons per acre is thus indicated. This can only be a crude index of population pressure on rural land in the Wet Zone, because the available statistical acreage under crops includes large extents of land not available for peasant agriculture such as the tea plantations. It may therefore be safely concluded that despite the Dry Zone colonization work done as at that time, there was still a considerable population pressure on Wet Zone agricultural land in the immediate post- war period.

Post - Independence Strategies

Sri Lanka won political independence in 1948 gaining "Dominion Status" within the British Commonwealth. Policies based on the same earlier development strategy were embarked upon with renewed vigor which was to have remarkable consequences.

Although the strategy was homegrown, there certainly was no hesitation on the part of the new political leadership to look towards the West for technology.

Great emphasis was placed on a health programme. particularly the eradication of Malaria, indicative of concern for the rural poor and Dry Zone colonization. With international assistance and DOT (first introduced in 1945) the effort was a resounding success. It meant on the one hand, that Dry Zone colonization became even more necessary by

6

the population build - up through longer life-expectancy in the already densely populated Wet Zone.

A Sri Lankan engineer, Wimalasurendra, had been for several decades calling attention to the hydroelectric power potential of the island. The first stage of a scheme he had conceived in the 1920s - the Laxapana Hydropower Project - was taken up for implementation in 1950. There was by then, a keen interest in what was termed the 'multi-purpose' development of river basins on the lines of the work done by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the USA. Four major river basins had been identified for comprehensive development. The first of these, the Gal Oya Project, initially conceptualized for its irrigation potential only, was converted to a multipurpose project to include hydropower generation, fish culture and recreation. The construction work on the dam, given on contract to an American company, was commenced in 1948. An executive Board inspired by the TV A model was established that same year which continued with work on the project till 1965. By ~hat time nearly 12,000 families had beet1 settled in the Gal Oya Valley. Meanwhile smaller scale irrigation and settlement projects continued apace.

Implementation and Central Administration

The central administration at the turn of the Century was under the Colonial Secretary and a few other officials. By the end of the 19205 the country had been divided for administrative purposes into nine 'provinces'. The administrative structure consisted primarily of nine Government Agents (GAs) each representing the Colonial Secretary in each of the nine provincial capitals. Under the GAs were nineteen Assistant Government Agents (AGAs) at the 'district' level. These districts were made up of a total of 110 'chief headmen's divisions', 613 subdivisions under 'superior headmen'. The whole was composed of some 4000 villages and hamlets with each one placed in charge of a 'village headman'. The upper echelons of this structure were occupied by members of the 'Ceylon Civil Service' (CCS) - a well educated and disciplined, elite cadre consisting of British and later a gradually increasing number of Sri Lankan

administrators. Although the original and prime function of this hierarchy was revenue collection, the GAs came to perform a very wide variety of legislative, executive and judicial functions. There is little doubt that the British consolidated and maintained control of the entire country through the GAs and AGAs.5

There were also a few 'Departments' by the 19205 which were outside the purview of the GAs. These departments dealt with surveys, public works, irrigation, police, etc and had their own field offices. It has been observed that, by then the GAs authority had diminished from the very substantial position of power in the late 19th Century. But, as Leitan points out, 6the GAs, being the outposts of the Colonial Secretary in

7

whom all administrative control was vested, still wielded considerable power and authority. Under colonial rule, the wishes of the subject population were not necessary factors in policy formulation Policy was decided at the centre, in Colombo implementation of policy decisions was through the administrative hierarchy.

With the new constitution in 1931 and elected ministers, policies took a different turn.

As has already been observed, the accent shifted towards providing the basic needs of the people at large with particular emphasis on domestic agriculture and Dry Zone colonization. Within the Ministries new Departments were established. The Land Development Ordinance of 1935 created the Land Commissioner's Department, a key organization for Dry Zone colonization, and existing organizations such as the Survey Department and the Irrigation Department had to playa renewed role.

The proliferation of specialized departments, each with their own decentralized outposts may indeed' have diminished the authority of the GAs. The surveyor, engineer and agronomist, each had a role to play, but the crucial role was still that of the administrator. With the control of the Agriculture Department passing to a member of CCS, the administrator assumed almost complete control over land matters. Land settlement and development were his legal responsibility. Even under the Irrigation Ordinance, the Agricultural Committees and District Advisory Committees were chaired by him. Thus, for the implementation' of the new Sri Lankan development policies, reliance had to be placed on the British colonial administration.

Decentralized Agencies

A spatially defined and firmly established structure for decentralized . administration did exist at the time of the Donoughmore Commission. This consisted primarily of the nine GAs and their AGAs. But, this structure, though suited for implementing in the provinces and districts, policies decided at the centre of power, was not intended nor equipped to be responsive to the needs of the people at large. Apparently therefore, a

Commission recommended the strengthening of Local Authorities. As already observed above, the Donoughmore Constitution in effect reduced the powers and duties of GAs.

The origins and history of modern Local Government in Sri Lanka have already been researched very ably by scholars. A detailed account will be irrelevant here and mention will be made only of the salient points arising from prior research. The ancient indigenous system had at its base the 'Gamsabhava', a council of elders that discussed matters of common interest at village level and played a conciliatory role in the amicable settlement of disputes. The Irrigation Ordinance of 1856 attempted to utilize this institution and successes with this experiment led

8

to the Gamsabhava Ordinance of 1871. This is said to be the origin and base of the modern Local Authorities. But, it has been observed that

" ... the Gamsabhava became in the eyes of the villager, an organ of the BrWsh bureaucratic machine rather than an institution indigeneous to them to which they were accustomed".

8

A number of ordinances dealing with urban matters were introduced In the late 19th Century. There was a Commission appointed in 1916 and the Local Government Ordinance was enacted in 1920, and the Village Communities Ordinance in 1924. The Doncughmore Constitution provided for a Ministry of Local Government. Some of the existing ordinances were then amended from time-to-rime increasing the provision for democratic representation. By the end of the Donoughmore period the structure that emerged contained Village Committees, Town Councils, Urban Councils and Municipal Councils. The last named were established in Colombo, Galle and Kandy.

Despite appearance, these institutions were in fact highly bureaucratized. The influence of the central government and the GA was very strong. It has been observed

" .. .that local Government, as introduced into Sri Lanka during this period, was more an artificial creation, a foreign importation than an indigenous development arising from the "felt needs" of the people themselves ... it was 9

an imposition from above by the British administration... ,

An important omission has also been noticed. The idea of establishing Provincial Councils as envisaged even by the Donoughmore Commission, was never implemented.

Dry Zone colonization thus assumed very much a 'center-outward' or 'top-downward' direction, where land-less peasant families were selected and placed on the land as efficiently as was thought possible acording to policy. Water for irrigation was provided, and land was "mapped-out" and administered. The latter functions, which

were perhaps the only attempts at Physical Planning in those days, were done by administrators, while the planning and design of irrigation system dominated the provision of infrastructure.

The Sri Lankan political leadership was however sensitive to the problems of the peasantry. The provision of agricultural credit by the State, government intervention in hastening debt conciliation, extending the effective functions of the State Mortgage Bank to aid the peasant, education and training in Agriculture were given much consideration. The participation of the farmer in development work was to be encouraged and in all this effort, much faith was placed in the Cooperative Move meant

10

Thus, while implementation assumed a paternalistic direction and

character, Sri Lankan political leadership was awake to the need, at least in principle for a healthy reverse feed-back.

9

In retrospect. it would seem that the Cooperative Movement in the form it was introduced to the island and the manner in which it developed, had some inherent defects which hindered the achievement of the objective of J peasant participation, cooperation and self-reliance. It has been argued that the fundamental principles of cooperation were commonly practiced very effectively in all spheres of traditional rural life in Sri Lanka, even transcending feudal and caste barriers; that these traditional systems and institutions were swept aside, and an alien mode!, German in its origins, fashioned in the prevailing sentiment in 19th Century Europe by such social reformers as Owen, the Rochdale pioneers and Raiffaiseen was superimposed. It is argued further, that from its inception in 191; dependence on the bureaucracy was written into the ordinance, which resulted in the steady growth of officialdom within the Movement

11

World War II helped to strengthen the Movement with the establishment of numerous Cooperative Stores Societies to facilitate the distribution of essential food stuffs throughout the island. The success of these societies in the war-time food distribution work gave the government confidence in the Movement, whose activities were expanded considerably in the postwar years. Needless to say, the rapid growth of the movement under emergency conditions further increased its bureaucratization.

The Local Government (Administrative Regions) Ordinance of 1946 had ended the GA's role in the Local Government bodies. It facilitated a separate departmental bureaucracy under the new Ministry of Local Government to function independent of the central government bureaucracy. The structure of local government hardly changed between independence and 1956. The powers were widened vis-Ă -vis the central government by and Act of Parliament in 1952. The government obviously perceived that the local authorities were not fulfilling their intended role, as a Commission was appointed in 1955 to look info this matter.

A significant introduction during this period was the Rural Development Movement in 1948. Through this movement Rural Development Societies were established in villages. These latter were democratically organized bodies for self-help community activities. The example of India has been cited where a similar movement led to the healthy growth of local government in a nation-wide policy of democratic decentralization Such was not to be the case in Sri Lanka. The 'societies' dashed with 12

the Local Authorities and no ' fusion' took place between them.

A spatially distributed local government structure had been available from the 1930s.

But, this remained inconsequential in the main thrust of the national development effort. Increased political! franchise and democratic representation in Parliament. resulted in increased strength to the sectoral Ministries and specialized departments within them, in the central government. Peripheral demands were met partially by decentralizing the implementation mechanisms of central government departments

10

It should be noted that the implementation process by vertically segregated sectoral agencies- was seriously hampered by a lack of horizontal coordination. The specialized departments had their own decentralized structure which usually lacked correspondence with each other at the various hierarchical levels. Coordination, which could have occurred at provincial level through the GAs even during the early 1930s, deteriorated.

Thus there was decentralization in implementing policies, but this was generally uncoordinated. However, there was no decentralization of political decision-making on policy issues and development work during this period.

Local Government

There were in 1955 some _ 79 officially recognized urban places in the country, which were distributed according to classification as follows:

13

08 were Municipal Councils 35 were Urban Councils 36 were Town Councils.

A map showing the locations of these towns (fig 1.1) indicates that the Dry Zone contained only 18 of toe 79 urban with only 01 of the 08 Municipal Council areas, 05 of the 35 Urban Councils and 12 of the 36 Town Councils. The Dry Zone which has more than 75% of the land mass accounted for a mere 16% of the urban population in 1955 (see Table 1.2)

11

12

13

Spatial Impact

The Wet Zone's share of population was increasing gradually in the late colonial period. Table 1.1 will indicate that this increase continued to 76.2% in 1931 and tapered-off at 76.6% in 946. A reversal begins at about that time because by 1953 there was decline to 75.3% when the Dry Zone's share is seen as starting to increase

Table 1.2 indicates that an urbanization trend continued but slowing down considerably to 154% in 1946. The euphoric context of the immediate post-war period with 'independence' in 1948.. a rapid population increase following the very successful antimalaria campaign and the economic boom of the early 1950s would lead one to expect a sharp upturn in the urbanization trend. Instead, no appreciable change is observable.

The national urban share remained virtually static between 1946 and 1953 moving from 15.4% to 15.3%. Other researches on urbanization too have noted this trend.

14

It may thus be concluded that the net spatial result of the mix of indigenous developmental policies in the 1931 -1956 period was not only the beginnings of a clearly perceptible spread 07 the population distribution into the Dry Zone A most unusual reduction of urbanization to a state of rural-urban balance is observable in the post -independence period

Remarkable as these changes were, the need for intervention to create new urban places and improve existing ones in the Dry Zone seems to have missed the attention or all concerned.

2 R~GIONAL DEVELOPMENT 1956-1977

Strategies

The welfare policies of early Sri Lankan development strategy, particularly the broadbasing of access to education, called for in the 1930's and implemented from 1945

onwards, resulted in creating an increasingly literate and politically conscious population. This was not merely in limited urban enclaves but also in the rural areas. ,he literacy of the population (excluding the age group 1-4) moved from 399% in 1921 to 57.8% and 65.4 % in 1946 and 1953, respectively. The new Constitution and 'independence' in 1948 enabled much greater political freedom, and the demands of the 'periphery' began to be heard much better at the 'centre'. There began a virtual cultural! revolution with the 1956 General Election when a new government under the leadership of S.W.RD. Bandaranaike was swept into power What was occurring in those years has been adequately described as the emergence of a new elite more representative 07 the indigenous culture of tile

country15

the social climate of the period was not favorable to

14

It has also been observed that

planning. Society was agitated by other considerations than development. Tensions between ethnic groups erupted in violence and religious differences came to the fore.

National concern was focused on the movement to restore the culture, religion and 16

language of the majority to its 'rightful' place.

It has already been mentioned earlier that the idea of Provincial Councils which had support in the Donoughmore period, was not implemented. Bandaranaike, as the then Minister of Local Government had been its principal advocate. The State Council debates in the late 1930s suggest no disagreement on the idea. In fact it was included in a motion whic.1 was accepted without division in 1940. A statement by Bandaranaike 17

in 1947

indicates the importance he attached to the introduction of Provincial

Councils for effective decentralization. One of the two reasons he attributed in 1951 for his resignation from the ruling political party was to do with the non-implementation of 18

policies he had been urging .

Writing later about Local! Government, he states:

" Structurally there was only one further step to be taken the introduction of Provincial Councils were approved by the State Council shortly before its dissolution and the new cabinet approved them and this was stated in the Governor General's speeches in opening Parliament on two occasions. The late Prime Minister, Mr. D.S. Senanayake, suddenly and unaccountably opposed the 19

whole scheme and I was unable to implement it before my resignation..... ,,

However, after 1956 when he was Prime Minister till his assassination in 1959, Bandar2naike did not implement his proposal for Provincial Councils. Perhaps this had to do with the heightened ethnic tensions and other urgent problems during that time.

Nevertheless there is evidence of an underlying development strategy during that time.

A memorandum from the Prime Minister to the Planning Sub-Committee of the Cabinet in 1956 reveals the following: first consideration was to be given to the problem of the growing unemployment particularly in rural areas and therefore

“ ... there should be a great acceleration of both colonization schemes in the dry zone as well as village expansion ...special concentration must be made in the ... congested rural areas ... cooperative and collective working of estates must be tried...

15

,.20

Emphasis was laid on increasing food production, and the larger holdings of paddy lands were to be nationalized; the only reference to industries were to those that are路 based on agriculture or fisheries, a further broad basing of access to education! etc. The accent was on nationalization, 'Ceylonization' and equity; economic growth was considered last of all with reliance for its achievement placed upon agriculture and agro-based industries

21

".

The strategy was hardly different from what had existed earlier except that there was an even greater emphasis on equity and social justice. The insistence that British bases (Naval and Air Force) be removed from the Island, and the subsequent nationalization of local assets of the foreign petroleum companies, made foreign policy more 'neutral' and the already inward-looking strategy more introverted. The centrifugal spatial trend which had begun earlier gained momentum.

In 1959 a Ten Year Plan was drawn up. It has been observed in retrospect that this plan

" ... was a fundamental departure in development thinking, and its emphasis upon and analysis of the need to relieve poverty and unemployment (even) 22 .

at the cost of 'growth' was far ahead of the Western models of its time ... ,,

It was the first time a comprehensive plan had been prepared covering the whole national economy. Though very influential, it was never' made operational. As mentioned earlier, the Prime Minister was assassinated in 1959 and changes occurred in the Government and leadership.

The continuing high pressure on the Wet Zone agricultural land at this time and the consequent need to continue with colonization work in the Dry Zone are supported by statistical evidence. Based on land use data (Table II, 1962 Census of Agriculture) the Wet Zone agricultural acreage in 19,62 is estimated to have been 3,038,891. The 1963 Wet Zone rural population (based on Table 27, Statistical Abstract 1985) is estimated to have been 6,191,430. The agricultural density appears to have moved up from 1.39 in

1946 (as mentioned at the end of Section 2.1) to 2,04 persons per acre in 1962 despite concerted efforts to relieve this pressure in the interim. This latter density figure for 1962 is useful for comparing with the 1946 figure. However the estimate is crude because the acreage includes land under plantation crops.

The much wider range of data made available by the Agricultural Census of 1962 provides an opportunity for a more accurate picture and Table 3.1 2S been prepared for this purpose This table suggest, that the rural population density on land utilized for peasant cultivation in 1962 is 7,89 and not 2.04 people per acre. This conveys an extraordinarily high pressure on agricultural land in the Wet Zone.

16

There were external problems also. Sri Lanka still depended heavily on the export of plantation produce, mainly tea, rubber, and coconut, for earning foreign exchange to buy food essentials. Despite a boom in rubber prices during the Korean War, the 1950's were characterized by deteriorating terms of trade. By 1959 it was recognized among the local economists that a balance of payments crisis was at hand. To meet this situation the planning policies activated stringent import controls and simultaneous encouragement for the local substitution of imports23 These led to a further impetus to agriculture and food production. and also for the first time, to industrial expansion during the 1960's, especially in the Public Sector.

By 1963, fourteen new industrial corporations were in production, and five years later the number had increased to twenty-one. The new enterprises had included among others, the industrialized manufacture of textiles, cement, plywood, steel tyres and

petroleum oil refining. The total investment on industrialization by 1969 has been estimated at US S 322.4 million. The government had also established the State Engineering Corporation With the main purpose of realizing the construction work on these projects and maximizing the savings of foreign exchange2' Thus, with the closure of the economy under the import substitution strategy, introversion became quite thorough.

17

By the mid 19605 a centrifugal trend was clearly apartment in industrial location. There certainly had been no conscious industrious location policy as such. The trend had to do with the increasing political bargaining power of the periphery I vis-Ă -vis the 'centre'.

" Industrial location in the public sector gave undue weightage to less developed regions mainly on account of pressures of influential Members of Parliament. While location always bore some relation to raw material sources the possibility of benefiting a region which was less developed unquestionably influenced decisions. The public sector projects were consequently widely dispersed in different parts of the island..�

25

While social development strategy focused on democratizing access to education, the content of education had received little attention. When industrial expansion was being considered, it was apparent that technical education had been neglected. Under British rule, higher education, which had been limited to a precious few, was mainly concerned with the Liberal Arts and Pure Sciences. Almost the only professions that had been encouraged had been Law and Western Medicine. A small Technical College had survived from before Independence and an Engineering Faculty had been subsequently added to the University. But, these were' grossly inadequate. Therefore a Commission was appointed in 1961 to examine this aspect. Its report in 1963 stressed the urgent need for technical education. Action was taken on this matter but in retrospect it was not fast enough.

Education was the most universally recognized means of social mobility. It had become a means of access to white collar jobs. As the population irrcre3sed and Job opportunities decreased, the demand for access to education moved to higher levels of education. Large numbers of youth of both sexes were being 'educated' out of their traditional rural environment, and into unemployment. Thus, clandestine extreme 'left' political movements consisting mainly of educated rural youth, looking towards

collective violence as a means of achieving socio-political transformation, gained strength.

The General Election of 1970 brought into power a coalition of political parties led by Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike. It was perhaps the most left oriented Government the country had hitherto known. Still, hardly one year later in April 1971. a left oriented youth insurrection occurred. It nearly succeeded in capturing power from the Government.

This coalition government intensified still further the long-standing ~trA1egy for rural development. It gave high priority to the alleviation of unemployment. The subjects of Planning and Employment were brought together in- one Ministry and placed under the direct purview of the Prime Minister.

18

Implementation

By that time, there was some disenchantment with ' planning from the ·top'. No reliance could be placed on the Local Authorities for national development work. A decision had been made in 1970 to create what were called "Divisional Development Councils" with the twin purposes of enabling planning at village level, and to foster popular participation for these activities. There were already a multiplicity of organizations at 'grass roots' level. But, these were the bottom tier of government institutions which were 'sectorally' and vertically segregated and coordinated only at the very top - at the centre of power in Colombo. These DDC's. (not to be confused· with the "District Development Councils" established in the late 1970s were intended to coordinate and integrate the development planning activities of these bottom tier agencies. Thus the composition of the DDC's included officials of he main government agencies working in the village as well as representatives of organizations such .as the Cooperative Societies, Rural Development Societies, Cultivation Committees and Village Councils.

The land area covered by a DDC’s generally coincided with that of the Local Authority 26

namely the Village Council area .

The DDC's were expected primarily to study the availability of resources and make proposals for small scale projects - especially those that were production oriented and likely to create employment opportunities. About 600 DDC's were set-up and it was hoped that each would generate on .average about 50 new jobs. The DDC's were also expected to monitor

the progress of projects but not execute them. For the latter task, the Cooperatives were preferred to individuals.

In the first year (1970/1971) itself, the Government voted about Rs 75 million for the DDC programme for a period of 15 months. Each DOC had been asked to prepare a programme for about Rs 200,000/-. A Project proposal identified for DOC was first 'screened' at the District level and if found satisfactory, it was to be sent direct to the

Regional Planning Division of the Ministry of Planning. The intention was to provide money for sound projects in the form of loans on easy repayment terms, rather than outright grants.

By 1973 some 1,700 project proposals had been made by the DDC's, about 500 had received approval and were being implemented. Some projects were very successful, but it has been observed that most of those had relied a great deal on external agents for initiative27. Many projects were unsuccessful and much criticism has been leveled at them 1 for that reason. Political factionalism crept into the DDC's, which perhaps P was unavoidable considering their structure and composition, but to nevertheless with consequences considered undesirable. The DOC Programme itself became a controversial political issue and it failed to receive support with the change of Government in 1977.

19

The next Level up from this was the District The DDCs were at Divisional level. As observed earlier, the British Colonial Government had divided the country for administrative purposes into nine 'Provinces' and each in turn into several 'District. The administration of each was headed by a member of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service, i.e., the "Government Agent" (GA). An institution called the "District Coordinating, Committee" had been established at an earlier time, which was chaired by the GA. In 1964 the GA was formally appointed as the District Deputy of all the national heads of Government Departments engaged in rural activities. This emerging position of the GA's leadership reminiscent of the colonial era, was being challenged on the one hand by technical and specialist government officers, and on the other by the elected representatives of the people, the Members of Parliament. Thus, with this background, the 'District Political Authority' was institutionalized in 1973 whereby a senior government parliamentarian was placed at the helm of each of the Districts in the Island28.

With the earlier District Political Authority' came a new financial practice known as the "decentralized budget'. The practice had hitherto been that decisions on the proportion of funds to be allocated to each 'sector' or 'functional' Ministry were made entirely at the centre, namely Colombo. The only available and effective means of inter-sectoral coordination was in the centre and at the very top. The new practice meant that while the earlier sectoral allocation scheme at the top also operated, some part of the total budget was to be allocated spatially to each of the Districts.· Hence the decision as to sectoral allocations within a District were- to -be made at the District level itself. This clearly called for a greater degree of decision making and coordination at the District level vis-à-vis the national capital.

The 1970 Government nationalized all lands that were under foreign ownership. The land reform taws that were introduced also stipulated that neither a company not an individual whether foreign or local could own more than 50 acres of land in aggregate.

The 'excess' lands were vested with the government. Thus all the large plantation lands came under State ownership and control. These measures meant that village expansion

work, which had slowed down considerably in the Wet Zone during the latter years due to the extreme scarcity of land, could now be continued. Thus, the less productive plantation lands, and sometimes productive lands as well, were allocated in small parcels to 'land-hungry' villagers. There is indeed a serious question as to whether this land allocation work was done in the best possible manner. There is however no question as to its impact on the centrifugal trend. If these measures did not positively and directly promote decentralization, they certainly did help in continuing to keep rural-urban migration in check.

The policies resulting from the strategy that was adopted during this period (19561977) also continued to encourage the population shift towards the Dry Zone. The Gal Oya Development Board had completed most of it tasks and was re-constituted as the "River Valleys. Development Board" (RWB). It was entrusted with _ work an the second of the large

20

multipurpose river basin projects - the Walawe Ganga Development Project. The irrigation and land settlement aspects were substantially complete by 1977.路' Many smaller projects were undertaken and completed by the three Departments - Irrigation , Land Development and the Land Commissioner's Department. Preliminary studies of the largest of the four originally identified multipurpose projects. the Mahaweli Ganga Development Project. were completed in 1969 by the Irrigation Department with technical assistance from the UNDP and FAO.

The 1970 Coalition Government, having negotiated a loan from the World Bank, commenced work on the Mahaweli Project. The Mahaweli Development Board had been established for this purpose in 1970. The project in its entirety, which was phased over a 30 years period, envisaged, inter-alia, direct benefits to nearly one million acres of Dry Zone land. The initial part of the work undertaken, briefly, included a trans basin diversion of some of the Mahaweli water at Polgolla near Kandy, into the Kala Oya Basin where an ancient reservoir, the Kalawewa, was to be enlarged and its 'command area' substantially increased to about 80,000 acres. The engineering aspects and some of the rest of this work were completed by 1977. Most of the settlement and social infrastructure work has been done since.

Several other Dry Zone projects which were of a much smaller scale were studied, notably the Kirindi Oya Project, another which is a complex of three proposed reservoirs in the Mundeni Ara Basin (known as the Rambukkan Oya Project) and the Inginimitiya Project. By 1977, the ADB, USAID and the Japanese Government were clearly interested in financing the foreign exchange components of these respective projects.

National Planning

Before independence there was no arm of the government machinery that was competent to deal neither specifically with spatial planning nor indeed with planning in

general. As has already been mentioned, policy was decided at the centre and implementation by-passed the local government structure.

Responsibility fell on the administrators of central government departments. On land matters, much reliance was placed on those administrators in the Land Commissioner's Department and on the GA's. It has also been mentioned that these persons were neither necessarily responsive to the needs of the population, nor directly answerable to them during colonial rule and the transitional Donoughmore period.

The 1947 Government favored Planning, and a Six Year Plan was prepared, but it was barely more than a budgetary exercise. An IBRD Mission in 1952 recommended that an institution be established to undertake planning work and accordingly in 1953 an "Economic Planning Secretariat" was set up which serviced an "Economic Committee" of the Cabinet. During the period 1956-1960 the Secretariat was replaced by a

21

"National Planning Council" chaired by the Prime Minister. This lasted till 1960 when it was supplanted by a "National Planning Department" under the Prime Minister. The 1965-1970 Government created a new "Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs" under the Prime Minister's purview A "Plan Implementation Division" was established 29

within this Ministry

During the 1970-1977 Government, plan implementation was made into a separate Ministry and the Planning and Economic Affairs Ministry gained a new "Regional Development Division". Regional Development would appear to have gradually gained some recognition as a subject in its own right. However, there does not seem to have been an adequate understanding of regional planning and its implications. A study completed in 1973 makes a case for development planning at the regional level

3o

It

mentions that

" ... sectoral planning from the centre combined with a vertical functional departmentalism in plan implementation has resulted in scattered and unintegrated development' of the regions. This has aggravated problems of coordination within the regional administration and has led to unsystematic resource allocation without regard to urban-rural balances' 31.

within a region or interregional disparities,,

Spatial Planning

In the early experiments with Dry Zone colonization during the period 1920-1925, an Englishman C.V, Brayne, the then GA of the Eastern Province, perhaps influenced to some extent by reforms in the new republics of Europe, evolved a system of ' land tenure. This system contained the tenurial basis of the subsequent "Peasant-Proprietor System" 32, which became embodied' in the new land policies. It was:

" ... an egalitarian yet individualistic system of peasant proprietorships very different from the system of inter-locking mutual obligation in the 33.

traditional village... ,,

As such it was an alien imposition from above. Traditional systems of land _ tenure and inheritance which prevented fragmentation and still minimized family conflict in the transfer of land from one generation to the next, were discouraged and consciously not developed.

Instead,

the

land

Development

Ordinance

,of

1935

inter-alia

institutionalized age discrimination and sex discrimination in land inheritance and a particular individualism in cultivation practices 34, situations which did not exist in the traditional Sri Lankan Buddhist villages A similar imposition was noted earlier as regards the Cooperative Movement. '

22

One recent study carried out by the People's Bank on the early Dry Zone colonies cites empirical evidence supporting the view that the originally intended tenurial situations do not actually pertain today. Ostensibly, land parcels have neither been fragmented nor consolidated. But, in reality, a few persons operate large acreage of land while some others have been virtually reduced to the status of 'land-less' labour on their own land

35

In 1946, at least urban planning gained some recognition as a specialized discipline in Sri Lanka with the enactment of the Town & Country Planning Ordinance. The legislation originated with a draft prepared by a British Planner in 1940. Although it underwent many revisions (Acts 9 of 1950, 20 of 1953, 10 and 22 of 1955) it still remained an enactment reflecting the intentions and preoccupations of similar legislature in Britain. As mentioned earlier, the Ordinance enabled the creation of Town & Country Planning Department, which could initiate planning schemes in collaboration with the Local Authorities. These latter in Sri Lanka as already noted, were of four types which in decreasing order in terms of powers vested in them, were the Municipal, Urban, Town and Village Councils. All the areas u-nder jurisdiction of the then existing Municipal and Urban Councils (i.e. the ULAs) automatically came within the meaning of "Urban Development Areas" in the T & CP Ordinance.

With limited resources the T & CP Department was compelled to concentrate mainly on the ULA areas. However, for 30 years since its origin, the Department could initiate only three town plans in collaboration with the ULAs as envisaged in the Ordinance, apart from the regional plan for Colombo. There was also a successful scheme for the reclamation and development of a Colombo central area marsh at Maligawatte. The last is said to have been primarily due to the initiative of the then Minister for Local Government R. Premadasa36. All this indicates the weakness of the ULAs, which, as discussed earlier, were based on a model that evolved out of a wholly different historical background and socio-economic milieu. It becomes apparent, therefore, that the Ordinance was only marginally relevant to rural development, which. was the backbone of development strategy during the main period under review. When for example the River Valleys Development Board (RVDB) requested assistance in the

planning of a new town (Embilipitiya) in the Walawe river basin, the Department declined help due to pressure of work resulting from other priorities.

It must however be mentioned that, starting with the example of Anuradhapura in 1948, several other 'sacred areas' were planned by the Department. One was Kataragama37.

The others included Mahinyangane, Muthiyangane, Mihintale, Dambulla, Seruwila, Devinuwara, Polonnaruwa and Kandy 38. Most of these were ancient urban locations in the Dry Zone, but the latter fact was coincidental. This urban planning work was in no way directly related to rural area development in the Dry Zone. It may therefore be said that the Department which employed most of the technically trained urban and regional planners, played no part in Dry Zone colonization or village expansion and later Land Reform in the Wet Zone. It thus remained, for the most part, quite inconsequential in the major thrust of the national development effort during that time.

23

The Land Commissioner's Department came into being with the Land Development Ordinance in 1935. Another government agency known as the Land Development Department was established with the original purpose of building cottages for colonists in the Dry Zone. This latter Department gradually assume~ responsibility for constructing almost all of the social if1frastructure in the irrigation and settlement projects except ,.. those under' the direct purview of RVDB. The construction plans for buildings which were mainly small schools, hospitals, post offices and police stations, were obtained from the Public Works Department which employed Architects, and those designs were used' as 'type plans' for the construction work. Physical planning of the settlement areas received little or no professional attention. When then Irrigation Department designed the, irrigation systems and 'blocked-out' the allotments for paddy cultivation, they also identified the lands which were unsuited for irrigated agriculture ; which they thought may be suitable for settlement. The Land Development Department then constructed buildings on these lands. In the absence of available and interested local physical planners the RVDB employed two local Architects and established a small unit in the late 19605, whicb was entrusted with some micro-level physical planning work. But, the broad framework of decisions as regards the physical aspects were determined by the irrigation engineer- firstly, and secondly, by the land administrator. Consequently the spatial distribution of social and economic infrastructure the resultant economic geography of the landscape was quite unsatisfactory from the point of view of the 'colonists' and other settlers. This is borne 39

out by the empirical evidence of subsequent field studies, notably by Silva.

The feasibility report on the broad framework of the Mahaweli Proji2ct carried out by the Irrigation Department in collaboration with the UNDP and FAO were published in 1969. These documents reflect some consideration having. been given to spatial and physical planning. The subject of settlements was covered by an expatriate planner.

-

The official studies that followed the UNDP/FAO work on that part of the Mahaweli Project which was to be taken up first for implementation (Project I Stages I & II), were done jointly by the newly formed Mahaweli Development Board (MOB) and a French firm of engineering consultants Sogreah of Grenoble. These were reported in eight volumes of which the seventh, dealing with settlement was published in 1975. It contained some thinking on the sociological aspects but the-lack of Settlement Planning is evidenced by the treatment (or lack of it) given to the subject in the particular report: The space devoted to Physical Planning was barely more than a single page diagram.

..

The MOB established' a' small "Architectural Unit" within their Engineering Designs Divisions. With no input of trained Settlement Planning expertise local or foreign, most of the proposals contained in the report were blindly implemented. The result, as was predictable in 1975, was that an inappropriate settlement infrastructure system was materializing in this particular development area of the Mahaweli Project until mitigation measures were taken and some re-planning done in 1978-1980.

24

Fortunately, the extent of land developed then was less than a tenth of the land that was still to be developed under the project.

The Irrigation Department established what a Settlement Planning Division was in effect in 1975. During that time, the feasibility studies on the Lunugamvehera Irrigation Project were done in 1976 by the Irrigation Department and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The settlement aspects were given much more careful treatment. In fact the project was re-named at the request of the ADB Team "the Kirindi Oya irrigation and Settlement Project" signifying the importance of the settlement planning aspects.

But, the Division was short-lived, being disbanded in 1978.

It has already been mentioned that in the Wet Zone, land reform in its spatial aspects was related to the policy of Village Expansion. There was a physical inability to expand and extend Wet Zone agricultural land for food production, except by encroachment into the large, export oriented plantations of tea, rubber and coconut. Various types of settlements were tried - Cooperative Farms, Youth Settlement Schemes, DOC Agricultural Projects, a new type of settlement schemes run on cooperative lines known as "Janawasas", etc. Representative examples of four types have been examined for 40

their successes and failures in achieving their separate objectives

From the agricultural scientist's point of view what had been taking place in the wet zone was crop diversification on plantation lands. To study this aspect more thoroughly, a project within the Plantations Ministry had been established with UNDP assistance known as the "Agricultural Diversification Project". The personnel of this project became the nucleus of the National Agricultural Diversification and Settlement Authority, which was mentioned earlier as having been started by the 1977 government. This organization too did not carry any physical planners on their staff. It may therefore be said that the physical planning aspects had been neglected.

The industrialization that took place in the 1960's under the import substitution programme saw some decentralization in industrial location This, it has been observed, was more by the operation of a strong spatial centrifugal trend rather than by a deliberate spatial industrial location policy. Despite low efficiency in many these largescale state owned . industries, the gain to the country at large, in terms of foreign exchange saved is well established. However, there has been little or no empirical evidence suggesting that the people most in need in the regions were directly benefited by the location of these industries. The contrary has been suggested as regards their impact on small scale 'traditional' industries (handlooms, village blacksmiths, etc.)

41

Unlike the period reviewed earlier, the 1956-1977 period saw a considerable governmental interest in planning and also the establishment of some planning institutions. Urban Planning as a profession became better known towards the end of the period. A chair for Town and Country

25

Planning was established at the Katubedda Campus (now Moratuwa University) in 1972.

Almost: all of the urban planners were concentrated in the T & CP Department. The work of this Department, as discussed earlier, was linked to the urban local authorities (ULA'S) which were in fact quite inconsequential in the national development effort.

Furthermore, the Department continued to focus most of its attention on Colombo as if that was where the real national developmental problems lay. The Department established in 1975 with UNDP assistance the "Colombo Master Plan Project:" (CMP).

It gathered one of the largest teams of planners and specialists both local and expatiate ever brought together in Sri Lanka. This extraordinary team's efforts were focused on the problems of Colombo and its immediate environs.

The nearest: to proposals for a holistic view of the national urban system were implied in the work on two separate and very dissimilar projects: the Colombo Master Plan Project and the Mahaweli Project. These were location-specific projects but which did consider some generalities about national urban issues. The call for a national urban policy was articulated at the -ail end of this period. 42

Table 2.2 indicates that the reversal persisted in that the Dry Zone's share which was 24.7% that year continued steadily to increase to 31.1% In 1981.

The available statistical data on the urban population before 1963 included data from the Municipal and Urban Council areas. From 1963 onwards the population figures of the Town Council areas were also included. These accounts for the sudden jump in the urban share of population from 15.3% in 1953 to 19.1 % in 1963 as indicated in Table 2.3 It will be noticed that the urban share increases a little to 22.4% in 1971 but decreases to 21.5% in 1981. This pattern is mirrored in the Wet Zone as well as in the Dry Zone during this same period. Dry Zone colonization under the Mahaweli Project started in the mid-1970s, which may possibly account for the curb on what little urbanization that did begin to appear between 1963 and 1971.

27

similar to what had preceded it in that the stress laid on agricultural development for domestic consumption was re-emphasized and intensified,

Village Expansion

There was no overt attempt to reverse the land reforms introduced earlier In wet zone agriculture the first efforts were to systematize village expansion into plantation lands, An organization to deal with some of these aspects was established, It was called the National Agricultural Diversification and Settlement Authority,

Dry Zone Development

Dry zone development was also emphasized and intensified, Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of this was the "acceleration" of the Mahaweli Project. The new government decided to telescope the originally programmed project duration from 30 years to completion of some of the main 'headwork' within 6 years., Much of this work was completed on time although the bulk of the 'downstream' work remained, Thus as before, substantial reliance was placed on agricultural development with a view to increasing production, distributing incomes and substituting for imports, But in other respects the policies of the 1977 Government were different. There was a deliberate decision to open the economy and import policy was liberalized accordingly, it cannot be stated categorically, that these policies favored economic growth at the expense of social welfare. Indeed, there was perhaps an increased emphasis on providing basic needs, Shelter policy was a case in point. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that an important welfare item was deleted for the first time the rice subsidy - which had existed since the days of the Second World War,

Industry

One of the important areas of change was in industrial policy, The emphasis moved import substitution to export promotion, Incentives were given for the latter by

encouraging foreign and local! joint-venture companies, Important among these incentives was the establishment of the Greater Colombo Economic路 Commission (GCEC) and the declaration of Investment Promotion Zones (IPZs) first at Katunayake and next at Biyagama (Fig, 4,1), Another scheme permitted and encouraged joint venture industries for export to be established even outside the GCEC area provided they obtained clearance from a high powered government body known as the Foreign Investment Advisory Committee (FLAC). An FIAC approved project was established in a location as far away from the major coastal urban areas as Nuwara Eliya in the Central Hills. A j01ntventure gem mining industry was established within the Mahaweli area,

43

Clearly, the immediate economic development objectives of this new industrial policy had to do with earning more foreign exchange to help bridge the balance-of-payment deficit and with increasing the GNP. The

28

socio-economic objective of income distribution by generating employment opportunities was not by any means relegated to a less important position. While these were the prime objectives, there was also another very different secondary purpose Industrial technologies new to Sri Lanka were anticipated and it was hoped that the incentives would attract, inter-alia, the transnational electronics industries. Many would agree that considerable progress was made by the Jayawardena Government towards realizing the primary social and economic goals. The secondary objective was far more elusive.

Post-Insurrection Strategies (1988 - 1999)

By 1988, simmering unrest amongst the youth in the populous mostly Sinhala speaking, South Western part of the island began to take the form of an armed rebellion. Despite the violence, general elections were held that year and Presidential elections were held in 1989. President Jayawardena retired from active politics and the then Prime Minister, R..Premadasa, emerged victorious as the new President.

Although there was continuity in the political party after the 1988 and 1989 elections, there were in fact some changes. A change relevant to the subject at hand was that the two main urban planning agencies of the Central Government, the Town & country Planning Department and the Urban Development Authority, were re-located within the new Ministry of Policy Planning and implementation, which in turn was placed under the direct purview of the President. These indicated that the subject of urban and regional planning received at that time a recognition it never had before. However, what is perhaps even more important to this paper is that while it greatly facilitated the possibility of defining and declaring a national urban policy, no action was taken towards that end. It must of course be recalled that the years 1988-1991 were extremely troubled. The Sinhala youth up-rising was bloody and prolonged. It was quelled eventually by military force. Violence and bloodshed continued in the North and the East.

In May 1993, the incumbent President, Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated by a Tamil Terrorist's bomb.

The general elections of 1994 replaced a political party which had ruled for seventeen years by a coalition known as the Peoples Alliance (PA). it was led by Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike and with the Presidential Elections, which followed soon thereafter, her daughter Mrs Chandnka Bandaranaike Kumaratunga became the Head of State.

Although these events resulted in a sweeping change in the political parties and personalities, some of the important reforms ushered !n by the 1977 Government such as "liberalized" trade and incentives to foreign investment, were left unaltered.

29

The first major task addressed by the 1994 Government was a serious attempt to resolve the 'ethnic problem' in its political and military dimensions; the latter being manifest as a confrontation in the North and East between one heavily armed terrorist group and government forces. Unfortunately no resolution" took place.' This commitment and preoccupation perhaps precluded the clear enunciation of national policies. In regard to implicit policy attitudes to important urban and regional planning issues, the following points may be noted. The national agencies for urban planning were no longer directly controlled by the President but were placed in a more conventional location under the purview of a Cabinet Minister in charge of housing, construction and public utilities. A Cabinet re-shuffle in 1996 changed the Minister and also his portfolio to that of "Housing and Urban Development".

Devolution of considerable political powers from the centre to the region figured prominently in the package of reforms proposed by the PA Government to resolve the 'ethnic problem' in its political dimension, as well as to take government closer to the people; and, industrialization was to be pursued with more care paid to the location of decentralized industries in pre-planned industrial estates and parks.

The broad national development concerns such as village expansion, dry zone development and shelter provision remained. However, the continuing armed conflict in the North and the East placed a heavy constraint upon implementation especially on dry zone development. Some of the noteworthy projects undertaken during this period will be discussed in the following section. It may however, be observed here that impacts of external origin upon the developmental approach began to be felt during the latter part of this period. These 'globalization' trends may indeed have become more persistent and established following the signing of the agreement that led to joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) by the Sri Lanka Government in 1995.

IMPLEMENTATION

Miscellaneous Projects

It may also be noted that the Colombo Master Plan (CMP) Project mentioned earlier in Chapter 3 did not anticipate the first Investment Promotion Zone (IPZ) nor did it assist in selecting its location at the North of Colombo near the International Airport at Katunayake. These were entirely political decisions of the 1977 Government. But, it subsequently helped to prepare a structure plan for that IPZ. It also proposed the formation of the Urban Development Authority (UDA) which became a legal reality soon after the publication of the CMP Project Report in 1978.

The UDA unlike the agencies that exist in the major cities of most Third

30

World Countries has very wide powers not only to plan and develop urban land in a particular city. Although its first focus of attention was the metropolitan areas of Colombo, its purview. was extended to cover the other twenty four district capitals and the important tourist resort development areas. The UDA also functioned as a technical advisor to the Cabinet sub-committee on Urban Development Policy.

The UDA took the initiative to catalyze some urban renewal and property development work. "Singaporean" images were invoked and a few urban high-rise projects were commenced in Colombo. Another important urban project involved shifting the parliament complex from its earlier location just outside the central business district of.

Colombo to Sri Jayawardenapura in Kotte, a suburb of Colombo. It will be recalled that Kotte was a royal city at the advent of Portuguese in 1505 and had subsequently declined, while Colombo began as a small port facility and grew under the colonial economy and influence. Although the UDA dealt with re-locating the Parliament Complex at Kotte, the project was identified and decided upon by the political leadership of the Jayawardena Government.

The proposals of the earlier CMP Project included measures to rapidly increase job opportunity in the city and a large investment programme to upgrade transport, services and infrastructure and generally modernize the City of Colombo. Although these latter were not implemented, it may be said that starting with the 1977 Government, high priority was giveF1 to a few specific urban based projects which cannot be neatly ascribed to the hitherto generally adopted development strategy.

Such ad-hoc urban based projects continued to receive priority and were implemented with increasing frequency in the 1990s. The UDA, the GCEC renamed the Board of Investment (BOl) by an Act of Parliament in 1992, or both institutions originated most of these projects. The better known and more visible of these 'real estate' development efforts in the Colombo region were: the World Trade Centre 'Twin Towers' which is primarily office accommodation; "Crescat", 'Royal Park" and "Seylan Towers" which are mostly all luxury apartments. Other less prominent projects have been constructed

such as "Kings Court", "Queens Court" and "Flower Court" with at least three more in the 'pipe line' according to a BOl Newspaper advertisement in March 1999. Yet another BOl approved investment project, which will alter significantly an important part of the urban fabric of Colombo, is the further development of the Queen Elizabeth Quay in the harbour.

31

Local Authorities

The historical background, development and the inconsequential role played by local authorities in national and regional development have been mentioned earlier in Chapter 1. A brief description of the status of local authorities in the immediate post1977 period may be appropriate here. There were in 1981 some 12 Municipal Councils, 39 Urban Councils and 83 Town Councils in the country. Approximately 21.5% of the national population was urban of which 69.2% lived in "urban local authority" areas 44

(ULAs)

32

(Fig. 3.1). The latter are the Municipal and Urban Council areas.

33

The administration of the local authorities continued under the control of the Department of Local Government which came to function within the Ministry of Local Government, Housing & Construction (MLGHC). The executive decisions of the various local authorities were made by their respective councils. These comprised elected members headed by a Mayor or chairman in the Municipal and Urban Council areas, respectively. National urban policy decisions were made by the Cabinet of Ministers as recommended by a Cabinet Sub-Committee on Urban Development which latter was chaired by the President.

As before, the local authorities were expected to provide public amenities within their areas. These included services concerning water Supply, solid waste disposal, sanitation, roads, street lighting electricity, public markets. playgrounds, libraries, etc.

To make these provisions, the ULAs generated as before some income by charging 31

license

fees for vehicles animals kept in these areas and by taxing businesses,

entertainment and property. The last named was the main single source, accounting for about 51 % of the total revenue In 1981. The ULAs have in general, always been very dependent on central government grams to grants the gap between expenditure and 45

income

The decentralization process which had begun earlier and had proceeded to the DOC programme (1971), the decentralized budget and the District Political Authority (1974) under the previous regime, was given a very definite and positive push further. The Government of 1977 created "District Ministers", one far each of the twenty four districts. An Act of Parliament in 1980 enabled "Development Councils', in each of the districts. While the executive head was a District Minister appointed by the President and representing the Cabinet at the District level the Councilors were the Members of Parliament of the district and there also were a few elected Councilors. A Developmem Council was in fact a local body with POW8;S to pass by-laws and collect taxes It also could formulate and implement policies, A District Secretariat was also created to enable at least some inter-sectoral coordination of government agencies and attempt to foster effective administration at district level. The GA was expected to function as the

administrative head of the Secretariat as the district coincided with his administrative purview

"Gramodaya Mandalas" were established at village level with one at the level of each Gramaseva Division. These Councils were sup Dosed to consist of freely chosen representatives of voluntary organizations as well as the functionaries of government agencies at the grass roots, they were thus expected to mobilize peoples participation to fulfill! the need for coordinating the multifarious activities at village level and to assist the District Development Councils through new Divisional level committees at the AGA level known as the "Pradeshiya Sabha".

The establishment of the Gramodaya Mandalas and Pradeshiya Sabhas a the 'village' and 'divisional' levels and the strengthening of the District Development Councils (DDCs) indicate that the 1977 Government recognized quite early the need for (a) an articulated structure for the

34

spatial decentralization process already underway, and (b) some form of democratic representation in that structure. It is also clear that they, like their predecessors, could not路路 rely on the already existing Local Government structure for decentralized development work.

The implementation of the Million Houses Programme beginning in 1984 depended upon this new decentralization structure of Local Government. In the Rural Housing Sub-Program the Gramodayas were required to select loan recipients, supervise construction and loan recoveries etc. and most of them have performed these tasks well.

In the Urban Housing Sub-Program reliance was placed on the Housing and 46

Community Development Committees of the Urban Local Authorities

Provincial Councils

The Jayawardena Government, facing separatist demands by militant Tamils during the heightened ethnic conflict of the mid 1980s revived the old proposals for Provincial Councils. The original proposals that had been agreed upon in principle in the 1930s and the fact of their exclusion from implementation even in the 1950s has already been commented upon in the earlier Chapter.

The Constitution was amended by an Act of Parliament47 in November 1987 which altered two Articles (18 and 138), inserted a new Chapter (XVIIA) containing twenty articles (154A to 154T) and introduced two new schedules referred to as the "Eighth Schedule" and "Ninth Schedule". The' main purpose of the Constitution amendment was to provide for the establishment of provinces, which was done under Article 154A(1), and with reference to the provinces named in the Eighth Schedule. The named provinces were in fact the same as those nine provinces that were established purely for administrative purposes and without political representation, under British Colonial rule. (Fig. 3.2).

36

The Provincial councils Act

48

also of November 1987 provided for the procedure to be

followed in the Councils and other connected matters such as provincial public service.

Each Council was to consist of members elected by the people of the Province, the number of members being dependent on population and land area extent as criteria. It was to have a Board of Ministers numbering not more than five. The Head of the Provincial Government would be a Governor appointed by the National President. The. Governor in turn would select and appoint one of the Ministers as Chief Minister. There was provision under Article 154A(3)of the particular Constitutional amendment for Parliament of the Central Government to provide for two or three adjoining Provinces to form one administrative unit with one elected Provincial Council, one Governor, one Chief Minister and one Board of Ministers.

The Administrative Reforms Committee (ARC) had submitted its sixth report entitled "Administrative Changes in Support of Devolution" in October 1987.49 the contained recommendations sought to enhance the effectiveness of the devolution of political power from the centre towards the periphery and it had anticipated in great detail the needed administrative structure and support organization.

It has already been mentioned in Chapter 2 that an in-depth study published in 1978 observed the lack of Provincial Councils as an appropriate tier in the system of local government in Sri Lanka. Another and earlier study published in 1973 on the subject of regional administration ma~ also be cited in support of Provincial Councils for regional 50

planning. .

The progress thus far of devolution in its administrative aspects 3eems to have closely followed this report. The ARC envisaged a three-tier structure consisting of the Centre, 51

the Province and the Pradeshiya level.

Parliament, the Provincial Council and the Pradeshiya Sabha were the representative institutions at the respective levels.

52

The Centre would deal mainly with macro

planning, the formulation of national policies and the setting of relevant standards. The

emphasis at the Provincial level would be on formulation of operational programmes and budget, the provision of technical guidance and monitoring facilities for implementation and the delivery of services which activities would take place at the 53

Pradeshiya level.

The ARC recommended the creation of a National Planning Council

at the centre comprising the Chief Ministers of the Provinces, a few relevant Cabinet Ministers and chaired by the President. It also recommended that a seven member Planning Commission (three of whom are ex-officio) should be established to make recommendations to the National Planning Council on development plans and intersectoral allocation of resources.

37

54

The ARC recommended that Provincial Planning Councils be established. Each of these would consist of members of the respective Board of Ministers along with three other "persons from the field of development planning.55 At the Pradeshiya level, the entire 'sabha' was expected to become the Planning Council' to appraise annual development plans, constituent projects and to monitor implementation. These planning sessions of the Sabha were to allow and encourage very full public participation through non-governmental organizations

56

As already observed, the PA Government not merely supports devolution of political powers as originally 'proposed by the ARC, but has proposed further a "package" of reforms.

Mahaweli Project

It would be recalled that during the tenure of the 1970 Government, a new organization was established to deal with the Mahaweli Project, namely the "Mahaweli Development Board" (MOB). At that time, the envisaged work on this project could have been handled by the River Valleys Development Board (RVDB). It is believed that the Government was keen that a separate and specific organization be created to handle the Mahaweli Project; hence the establishment of the MDB.

The 1977 Government's de9ision to "accelerate" implementation of the Mahaweli Project has already been mentioned. This necessitated harnessing the services and resources of many agencies in addition to the MDB. It was therefore~ found that another 'umbrella' organization would be needed to direct and coordinate all these agencies. Thus, in ~979 the "Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka" (MASL) was established by an Act of Parliament. This new agency had very wide powers to deal inter-alia with the hydroelectric power generation, irrigation, agriculture and land settlement aspects of the project. It could declare as "Special Areas" physical extents of land within which its interests and control may be focused. Accordingly, a very large

proportion of the island's land area, perhaps as much as one-third, was brought under the direct or indirect purview of the MAS L.

The decision to "accelerate" meant that detailed studies and implementation of several "systems" had to take place simultaneously. It did provide an opportunity once again for a holistic view. The first serious effort made within a government agency to establish the needed multidisciplinary professional team to handle the settlement and spatial planning work for the Mahaweli Project was in 1978 when the MOB enabled the formation of a "Regional and Physical Planning Division" under a professional planner working at the level of a Deputy General Manager. This Division did function, but began to disintegrate after about two years. But, during this time there was collaborative team effort on Settlement Planning in the System 'H' area, particularly a revised approach, on areas H4 and H5 which influenced planning work on System C.

38

While grappling with the much increased work-load of preparing detailed layout plans for the innumerable settlements, this Division did take the lead to bring to the attention of the authorities the need for a greater emphasis on Regional Planning and Urban locations.

57

Unfortunately, this was .to little effect. The over-riding pre-occupation of

the Project's management and administration was with finding funds for the ambitious engineering 'head-works' and main canals. Funds were found through different sources in the form of bilateral assistance for the different systems. The British funded the main head-works for System C, the Victoria Dam and participated with the EEC on most of the work on this system. The Canadians funded the main 'head-works' for System B, the Maduru Oya Dam. The design and construction of downstream development work on this latter system which, to date, included mainly the Left Bank main canal, was funded by the US Agency for International Development. With the involvement of different local agencies and groups of expatriate consultants from the various funding countries, the opportunity for comprehensive spatial planning receded.

It has already been mentioned that the acceleration of the Mahaweli Project resulted in utilizing several agencies of the Government for project implementation under the coordination of the newly formed Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka (MASL). Urban and Regional Planning expertise was available even for a short duration only in one of these agencies, the MOB, as mentioned earlier. The different implementing agencies made their own decisions as to the location of construction camps, A parochial view and sometimes intransigence on the part of separate institutions prevented rational and conjoint locations for some camps, which could otherwise well have become the nucleii of thriving towns. Thus, construction camps of different agencies were located in close proximity to each other and infrastructure built in these places. An example is found in the 'System B' area, where at Alawakkumbura a camp was built by the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau and 9 miles away at Aralaganwila another was built by the Mahaweli Development Board.

The aggrandizement of one camp location in 'System C' Girandurukotte, at the expense of an historic town with development potential, Mahiyangana, which incidentally had

been identified as a town of potential even in 1973 by Mendis

58

constrained the

development of the latter and the development of Dehiattakandiya a few miles North, both these being more suitable recipient locations for a higher order level of infrastructure. By the time Regional Planning expertise was available within the central coordinating agency (i.e. at the MASL) the main decisions as to the location of urban places and their hierarchical levels in terms of infrastructure provisions had already 59

been pre-empted. This has been discussed more fully elsewhere.

An independent proposal was made to extend the railway system into the Mahaweli development area. Although this suggestion was never adopted as an official project, its feasibility is one that bears further consideration.

39

Terrorist activity in the forward areas of the Mahaweli Project brought all major extension work to a halt in the mid-1980s. A balanced view on the project's status may be had from a publication following a comprehensive three-day workshop on the subject conducted in September 1998 by the National Academy of Science of Sri Lanka.

60

Miscellaneous Projects

It may also be noted that the Colombo Master Plan (CMP) Project mentioned earlier in Chapter 3 did not anticipate the first Investment Promotion Zone (IPZ), nor did it assist in selecting its location at the North of Colombo near the International Airport at Katunayake. These were entirely political decisions of the 1977 Government, . but, it subsequently helped to prepare a structure plan for the IPZ. It also proposed the formation of the Urban Development Authority (U DA) which become a legal reality soon after the publication of the CMP Project Report in 1978. the UDA unlike the agencies that exist in the major cities of most Third. World Countries has very wide powers not only to plan and develop urban land in a particular city. Although its first focus of attention was the Metropolitan area of Colombo, its purview was extended to cover the other twenty four District Capitals and the important tourist resort development areas. The UDA also functioned as a Technical Advisor to the Cabinet Sub-committee on Urban Development. The UDA can advice on national urban policy, but it has hitherto not done so.

The UDA took the initiative to catalyze some urban renewal and property development work. "Singaporean" images were invoked and a few urban high-rise projects were commenced in Colombo. Another important urban projects involved shifting the Parliament Complex from its earlier location just outside the central business area of Colombo, to Sri Jayawardenapura in Kotte, a suburb of Colombo. It will be recalled that Katie was a royal city at the advent of the Portuguese in 1505 and had subsequently declined while. Colombo began as a small port facility and grew under the colonial

economy and influence. Although the UDA dealt with re-locating the Parliament Complex at Kotte, the project was identified and decided upon by the political leadership of the Jayawardena Government.

The proposal of the earlier CMP Project included measures to rapidly increase job opportunities in the city and a large investment programme to upgrade transport, services and infrastructure and generally modernize the city of Colombo. Although these latter were not implemented, it may be said that the 1977 Government gave high priority to a few specific urban based projects which cannot be neatly ascribed to the hitherto generally adopted development strategy.

40

Some Proposals

Two Urban Planners, Bulankulame and Mendis have separately made considered planning proposals based on Growth Centre Theory. Bulankulame in papers presented in 1966 and 1967, made a case for developing Trincomalee as a Growth Pole. Mendis subsequently in 1973, made a similar proposal in the contest of an academic dissertation on the Mahaweli Project. He identified six "Growth Centres" for the Mahaweli Region and singled out Trincomalee for very special treatment. These were proposals made at a time when there was still some optimism amongst planners in Growth Centre Theories.

A number of other urban planning studies and proposals have been made by a variety of agencies and their consultants. Most of these which are discussed below are locationspecific. The UDA was in the process of preparing plans for the district capitals and other places which have been declared as "Urban Development Areas" under their Act. The Town & Country Planning Department continued their work with the local authorities when they were called upon to do so. The Central Environmental Authority had commissioned some planning studies in locations where serious environmental degradation was evident.

61

There were of course several important irrigation projects other than the Mahaweli, such as the Kirindi Oya Irrigation and Settlement Project. and further work on the Walawe Ganga Project, both of which are now in various stages of being implemented.

Work on the Mundeni Ara basin development has yet to commence. Although these are not regional planning projects, they have regional implications which will tend to diminish the relevance of the existing spatial pattern. But implementation of most of these proposals, however good they may be, are not likely by themselves to cause a dramatic structural change.

A few individuals have spoken out in favor of shifting the national capital from Colombo to a more central location in the island. One such person saw Anuradhapura as the most suitable location for the political capital!, leaving Colombo to play the lead urban role in Commerce.6L His suggestion. is worthy of examination at least for academic interest He thought it necessary to use the traditional religious insight to create a motivational change. In his view shifting the capital to Anuradhapura.

Would fire us with a new confidence and bring about a vitalization of all the creative and artistic forces to change the face of this land ... the new agricultural thrust towards the North Central Province, the growing Tamil affirmation of their own racial genius and the vast mass of Sinhala youth 63

make it imperative for us to build together a new capital at Anuradhapura ....

41

It is difficult to dismiss such a proposal as being a mere romantic dream. The capital of British India was moved from Calcutta to New Delhi. Australia, Brazil, Pakistan and Kenya built new inland capitals. The implementations of these decisions may have caused their own specific problems, but they also achieved purposes not very different to those cited above. Furthermore, the proposal, if implemented, would have created a substantial shift in the location of the urban centre of gravity, which could have triggered the needed structural change in the National Spatial System. However, the suggestion is much less practicable now, as the Parliament Complex has since been moved form Colombo Fort at very considerable expense to a Colombo Suburb - Kotte, with inconsequential spatial benefits to the nation as a whole.

The Third Land Commission

The Land Commission of 1986 thought that at least some examination of urban land issue was a pre-requisite in formulating an overall land policy for the island. The commission appointed a sub-committee to study urban land issues and this subcommittee met with a number of invited specialists. There were nine such meetings during the period July through September 1986.

The Land Commission's Final Report in its entirety was submitted in 1987.64 Chapter VII of the Report dealt with the urban land policy issues.

Their views are re-stated more briefly in the following few paragraphs.

The Commission had noted that the rates of urbanization are very high in most LDCs, so much so that the urban share of the developing world's population is expected to exceed 50% very soon. They also noted that the situation in Sri Lanka has in the past been different, with extremely low rural-urban migration. This they believed was possibly due to the rural development and dry zone colonization efforts since the 1930s.

However, expert opinions they had consulted converged on the likelihood of a large scale reversal in the migration trend in Sri Lanka, which may already have begun. The urban share of the population which was 15% in 1946 and 22% in 1971 they expected

would even under conservative assumptions reach 35% within the next two or three decades. In that time, urban land which is now less than 2% of total land area may rise to 5%. They were convinced that there. is therefore a likelihood of a substantial new demand for urban land.

The Commission felt that the likely demand for urban land may be met, broadly, by the conversion to urban uses of land hitherto under other uses. This means (a) that some of the existing towns may expand in land area; (b) that population density of existing towns may increase and/or (c) hat new towns may be established. Each of these options posed their own set of problems. To select form the options and face the problems involved, the Commission found it necessary to consult expert opinion and study the issues in some depth. In the absence of an explicit national

42

urban policy they were forced to shape an attitude towards urban development consonant with national development aspirations.

In defining a policy stance for urban development, the Commission took note that in the abstract, there should be interdependence between urban and rural activities, but that in Sri Lanka as in many ex-colonial developing countries; there are structural deformations in the national urban system. An important and adverse consequence was that urban areas become economically exploitative in relation to their rural hinterlands.

Therefore it was also noted that national development in the Sri Lanka context implies a need for a structural change in the colonially derived national urban system. This is turn requires a de-emphasis on Colombo. The accent for the time being should be on the development of a large number of smaller towns rather than a small number of larger towns.65

The Commission had noted that the towns of the 20,000-50,000 population category already contained 50% of the national urban population. They felt strongly that these towns (mostly provincial capitals) should be encouraged to develop together in preference to the development of Colombo or a single 'counter-magnet' alternative.

Furthermore, the growth of a system of existing and new small towns of population inbetween village centres and medium scale towns should be encouraged, especially in the dry zone for their 'service centre' role in agriculture and rural development. While stating these, the Commission expressed a marked preference for a substantial increase in urban densities over low-density horizontal urban expansion. This preference they justified on the basis of social, economic environmental and aesthetic considerations.

The Land Commission's recommendations may be summarized as follows

1. Re-define the urban areas based on the occupation of inhabitants, population densities, land use and the availability of amenities;

2. Prepare a comprehensive inventory of all urban land indicating use, tenure and other relevant information;

3. Establish and develop small towns as 'Service Centres' for agriculture, especially in the dry zone;

4. Encourage the establishment of an 'agropolitan' local government system to deal with small towns and also their hinterlands;

66

5. Develop simultaneously the towns in the current population category of 20,000 50,000, these being mainly the Provincial Capitals and de-emphasize; the development of Colombo or a single counter-magnet alternative;

43

6. Increase urban densities by encouraging modern developments in urban planning and architecture and discourage urban sprawl and 'fringe area conversion';

7. Conserve urban fringe lands as 'green belts'; and

8. Take immediate steps to plan and develop idle urban land, consider the introduction of a land ceiling and establish urban land banks where necessary.

CONCLUSION

An Overview of Spatial Change

Sri Lankan development strategy in its original was almost exclusively concerned with rural development. The objectives were equally to do with increasing agricultural production for domestic consumption, reducing dependence on the 'colonial' plantation export economy and improving income distribution. It was a home-grown strategy with early beginnings. By the 1930s it was quite well articulated in the minds of a few Sri Lankan leaders. Policies based on this strategy began to be implemented in the 1930s with increasing intensity as Sri Lanka gradually began to win more political freedom from the British. While this indigenous strategy appears today to be rational and sane, it is interesting to note that it was not thought to be so at the outset. It was criticized at home by the political Right as well as the Left. Its 'flaw' seems to have been that it was not based on any accepted western model. The then Sri Lankan leadership nevertheless appear clearly to have had enough self-confidence and courage to hold on to their convictions and persist with their 'heretical' strategy.

Development strategy in its essentials changed little in Sri Lanka during the seven decades that followed. Some policies implemented under the umbrella of this strategy were implicitly spatial while others were more explicitly so. Of the latter, the two most important policies originated in the 19308. One relates to the extension of land under food crops, applicable mainly in the densely populated Wet Zone and was referred to as

"Village Expansion". The other involved the reclamation of the sparsely populated Dry Zone jungles by irrigation and re-settlement projects, which was termed "Colonization". Through this development effort the health and education levels of rural folk improved vastly. Agricultural yields drastically increased and much more land - especially in the Dry Zone - came under the plough. Despite a population increase from 5.3 Million in 1931 to 14.8 Million in 1981, the country moved from a position of almost total dependence on food imports to one of food self-sufficiency during this period. Sri Lanka is almost unique in the developing world for having averted the serious problems connected with massive rural urban migration to its primate city.

44

The Sri Lankan policies, namely Village Expansion in the Wet Zone and Colonization of the Dry Zone, along with the implementation over the years of other implicit spatial policies, have resulted in two discernible trends which are essentially spatial in character, One is a decentralization process tending towards the redistribution of the effective exercise of political franchise and the location of new infrastructure facilities and social benefits within the existing spatial structure, whereby the 'periphery' gains at the expense of the 'centre' but the structure continues to remain the same, It is a centrifugal tendency which mitigates to some extent the gravitational pull of the centre, The other trend involves a gradual change in the spatial structure itself where the physical area covered by it is extended from the Wet Zone of the island to a much wider coverage of land including large extents of new development areas in the Dry Zone - a spatial extension and structural change,

The impact of these policies on the pattern of human settlements is quite remarkable in that the spatial distribution of population has dramatically altered. Figure 4,1 shows the growth of the all-island population and also the growth of the Dry Zone population between the years 1901 and 1981, The positive changes in the rate of increase indicates, inter-alia, the impact of health improvement policies,

When one examines the Dry Zone's share of the population in relation to the Wet Zone's over the same period, the picture is far more telling, Table 4,1 provides the statistics, It will be seen that the Dry Zone's share of the island's population was declining from 26% in 1901 to 22% in 1931 to the gain of the Wet Zone. From 1931 onwards this picture begins to change and the new scenario is that the Wet Zone in fact begins and continues to lose an increasing part of its share to the Dry Zone. the latter's share of 22% in 1931 and 1946, goes up to 31 % in 1981. This is indeed remarkable when one considers the concentration of urban facilities and socioeconomic infrastructure that existed in the 1930s and 1940s in the Wet Zone as compared with the inhospitable physical environment of the Dry Zone,

45

paddy farming at subsistence level. This mono-culture economy was sustainable only as long as more Dry Zone land was irrigated and became available for the second and third generations of each successive group of settlers. With the diminishing availability of Dry Zone land starting in the 1980s, the continued sustainability of this developmental effort came seriously into question. A reverse migration was predicted and may already have begun.

The framework within which government activities have been confined in the past, being sectorally conceived and vertically segregated with coordination only at the very top, appears to have been very much a structural constraint. The post-independence multi-purpose river basin development projects, despite their basis in an alien model (TVA) , did help to mitigate this latter aspect of the constraint and engender at least some inter-sectoral coordination within specific project areas. The appointment of District Political Authorities, followed by District Ministers and the more recent establishment of Provincial Councils indicates a clear trend. If decentralization and the devolution of political power are implemented as intended, inter-sectoral coordination will be positively improved throughout the country.

Sri Lanka inherited a dendritic structure or interlinked urban places It would seem that the spatial impact of prolonged colonial economic activity was understood well but only in part by the early Sri Lankan political leadership. The fact was not recognized that like most ex-colonial dependencies this structure was dominated by Colombo with the bulk of the urban and interurban infrastructure facilities being concentrated in the Wet Zone.

The recognition of 'primacy' and a deformed 'dendritic structure' as colonial legacies and as obstacles to progress begins to appear in the literature in Sri Lanka only around 1977

67

. The need for a national spatial planning policy

emphasizing a role for urban places in rural and regional development was also recognized and articulated at that time.

The fact that these notions had gradually gained credence over the years becomes evident from the Land Commission Report of 1987 and the Urban Sector Profile for Sri Lanka prepared by the Asian Development Bank and published in 199168 In point of fact, the basis of analysis in the latter is clearly acknowledged to be the former 1977 paper. The 'profile' led to extensive and continued ADS funding for infrastructure development in a large number of outlying mid-sized towns.

Furthermore, the Institute of Town Planners through a forum they organized in 199569 focused attention on the need for defining a national urban policy and on he key issues that may be encountered. A Presidential Task Force on Housing and Urban Development in 1997 in effect recalled and highlighted similar issues on urban development as those raised in the 1977 paper. A direct consequence of the Task Force has been the substantial amendment to the Town and Country Planning Ordinance, the creation of the National Physical Planning Department and the establishment of a very high-powered council that can define national spatial policy which can subsume and articulate urban policy.

This Study has been prepared for the Centre for National Physical Planning of the UDA which is in effect the 'think tank' to help the newly formed National

46

Physical Planning Department to get underway. The Study has attempted to examine past and more recent regional development efforts for their likely impacts on the physical planning effort for the future. It is hoped that the study has achieved its general objectives and that it will be of specific help in defining a National Spatial Policy.' . .

The implicit goal of Sri Lankan indigenous strategy during most of 1931- .

1999 period was to in prove the underdeveloped outlying regions of the country; the periphery and not so much the centre. The objective which had a strong egalitarian spatial dimension, was clearly one of regional development. This study brings to light that not recognizing the role of urban places in rural and regional development, has led to the lack of investment in the development of urban locations, that this omission created a problem that grew steadily with the spatial changes that did take place over the years; that the problem now has reached the proportions of a constraint to regional development and national progress; and, that this constraint can now be overcome by nothing short of sustained action based on an explicit national spatial policy that gives due recognition to urban development of a specific and appropriate form.

47

END路NOTES

1

Senanayake D.S. "Agriculture and Patriotism", Lake House, Colombo 1995. vi (pp.103)

2

Ibid 3

3

Farmer, B.H. "Pioneer Peasant Colonization in Ceylon : A Study in Asian Agrarian Problems", Oxford University Press, London 1957. xxvii, (p. 387)

4

Friedmann, J and M. Douglass "Agropolitan Development Towards a New Strategy for Regional Planning in Asia" in Growth Pole Strategy and Regional Development Policy : Asia Experience and Alternative Strateaies, La, F. and K. Salih, p. 181, Oxford (pergamon Press) 1978

5

Leitan, G.R. Tressie "Local government and Dcentralized Administration in Sri Lanka", Lake, Colombo 1979, (pp 739)

6

Ibid

7

Ibid

8

Ibid (p.51)

9

Ibid (p.50)

10

Senanayake op cit

11

"Cooperatives" in Economic ReviewVoL4 (2/3),1978 (pp.3-15)

12

Leitan op cit (pp. 62, 63)

13

Panditharatna, S.L. "Some Survey of Data and Aids for a Study of the Towns of Ceylon" in University of Cevlon Review. Vol. XX NO.2 Colombo October, 1962 (pp.222)

14

Reference may also be made to Gunatillake, Godfrey "The Rural Urban Balance and Development The Experience in Sri Lanka" in MARGA Vol.2 NO.1 Table III (pA5)

15

Singer, Marshall R. "The Emerging Elite: A Study of political Leadership in Ceylon ", MIT, Cambridge Mass. 1964

16

Marga Institute "Welfare and Growth in Sri Lanka" in Marga Research Studies-2.

Colombo 1974

17

Bandaranaike,

S.W.R.D.

"Speeches

and

Writings",

Department

of

Broadcasting and Information, Colombo 1963 pp 215 18

Ibid pp 145

19

Ibid pp 238

20

Ibid pp 172

21

Ibid pp 172-176

22

Lipton, Michael "Some Notes on Dependency" in IDS Bulletin Vol. 7(1) UK 1975 23 Karunatilleke, H.N.S. "Economic Development in Ceylon" Praeger, New York 1971

24

Ibid

25

Marga Research Studies - 2 op cit pp 30, 31

26

Gunatilleke, Godfrey "Origins and Development of Divisional Development Councils and Their Role as Agents for the Mobilization of Youth for Regional Development", (A paper presented at a Seminar on Youth Organizations in Colombo, April 1973) in Marga Research Studies- 2 Op cit P 105, 1974

27

Ibid

28

Wijeweera, B. S. "A Colonial Administrative System in Transition: Some Reflections on the Proposed Appointment of District Ministers" in Economic Review Vol. 3 (12), Colombo 1977. pp 24-36

29

Marga Research Studies -2, 0,0 cit pp 47

30

Fernando, Neil" Regional Administration in Sri Lanka ", Academy of Administrative Studies, Sri Lanka, Colombo 1973

31

Ibid pp 56

32

Farmer, S. H. "Pioneer Peasant Colonization in Ceylon. A Study in Asian Agrarian Problems" Oxford University Press, London 1957

33

Ibid

34

Ibid

48

35

Goonatilake, Susantha "Social Differentiation in Settlement" ( A paper presented at a Seminar on Mahaweli Development 4,5 August 1978) Mimeo Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, Colombo 1978

36

Bulankulame, S. W. P. "Town Planning in Sri Lanka", Ceylon Daily News Colombo.

06

June 1989

37

Gunaratna, , "Kataragama Planning Scheme" Cevlon Today Colombo. June 1962

38

Bulankulame Op cit. "Town_ Planning in Sri Lanka"

39

Silva, W. P. T. "Udawalawe Project: A Case Study on Settlement Planning" (A Paper Presenter at a Seminar on Physical Planning and National Development) Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, Colombo 1976

40

Ellman, A. O. and D. de S. Ratnaweera " New Settlement Schemes in Sri Lanka: A Study of Twenty Selected Youth Schemes, Co-operative Farms , DOC Agricultural Projects and Land Reform Settlement" Agrarian Research and Training Institute , Colombo 1974

41

Mendis, D.L.O. "Technology Needs in the Light of National Development Models: Sri Lanka" (A paper presented at a symposium on Social Values and Technology Choice in the International Context)) Mimeo, Racine Wisconsin, June 1978.

42

Gunaratna, K. Lacana "A Case for an Explicit National Urban Policy "Economic Review, Colombo, September 1977.

43

The very first experience in Sri Lanka of a mechanized gem mining operation was by an Australian/Sri Lanka joint-venture company which mined a part of the Mahaweli System F land area near Naula, until mid 1989.

44

Ministry of Local Government, Housing & construction (MLGHC).

"Performance Improvement of Urban Local Authorities". The Draft Project Report, report presented at the Second National Seminar and Workshop on Urban Local Authorities, Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Colombo, 28-29 March 1985.

45

Ibid

46

Sirivardana, Susil "Reflections on the implementation of the Million Houses Program (Sri Lanka)", op.cit DPU London, 1987 .

47

Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, certified on 14th November 1987, supplement to Part II of the Gazette, Colombo, 20th November 1987.

48

Provincial Councils Act No. 42 of 1987, certified on 14th November 1987, Supplement to Part II of the Gazette, Colombo, 20th November 1987.

49 .

Published by the Government of Sri Lanka as Sessional Paper No. III,

February 1988 50

Fernando, Neil "Regional Administration in Sri Lanka" Academy of Administrative Studies, Colombo 1973 (p.56)

51

Ibid (para 14)

52

Ibid (para 20

53

Ibid (para 25-27)

54

Ibid (para 66-68)

55

Ibid (para 69)

56

Ibid (para 69)

57

"Workshop on Regional planning for the Accelerated Mahaweii Development Area" sponsored jointly by the Mahaweli Development Board and Acres International Ltd (of Canada), Colombo, September 1979.

58

Mendis, Willie, "Regional Planning Implications of the Mahaweli Project", Lake House, Colombe 1973.

59

Indraratne, A.D.V.de S. (ed), "A Quarter Century of Mahaweli : Retrospect and Prospect" Cap. 15 pp. 257-276; National Academy of Sciences, Colombo 2000.

60

Ibid

61

Eg. at Hikkaduwa and Nuwara Eiiya

62

De Kretser, Bryan in a letter to the Editor, Published in the Ceylon Daily News, 2na July 1977.

63

Ibid. This proposal received support fiOm the Author of this Study by a letter published in the Ceylon Daily News on 9th July 1977.

64

The Land Commission of 1986. Report submitted to H.E. the President of Sri Lanka, Colombo 1987.

65

Ibid Sections 7.43-77.45 The Theoretical position presented according to foot note 32 of the Report is credited to a publication of the Author (Economic Review, Colombo - September, 1977)

66

The 'Agropolitan' concept was first introduced to the Land Commission at the 3rd Meeting of the Urban Land Policy Sub-Committee held on 25th July 1986 (vide item 6 of the minutes)

67

Op cil "A Case for an Explicit National Urban Policy" 1977.

68

"Sri Lanka Urban Sector Profile" ,A,sian Development Bank, Manila January 1991 (pp 23,24 and Fig. 2)

69

"Towards an Urban Policy for Sri Lanka" Institute of Town Planners Sri Lanka, Colombo (published) 1997

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