The Hon. Mano Ganesan

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chair, I am pleased to join the debate on the Adjournment Motion brought by our young MP, Hon. Amila Prasad.

¶ 02 From morning, both government and Opposition Members spoke alternately on many issues: whether essential prices are high or low; whether this government has been in office 100 days or 50; whether poverty has increased or decreased.

¶ 03 The hill country plantation region is like an island within the island — where poverty has entrenched itself. Poverty is not defined only by wages; it is multifaceted. In the hill country plantations, people lack land rights, home ownership, educational rights, and basic facilities — they are among the poorest in Sri Lanka.

¶ 04 Reports prepared jointly by the FAO and WFP identify plantation people as the poorest, most backward, and health-impaired. The Sri Lanka Red Cross and the International Red Cross have also reported the plantation people as the most backward.

¶ 05 In this House, together with our President, Hon. Anura Kumara Dissanayake, we twice brought full-day debates on disadvantaged communities countrywide and specifically on hill country people. Therefore, it cannot be unknown to the government and to the President that hill country people are among the most disadvantaged.

¶ 06 Ahead of the coming March Budget, I call for an increase in the wages of estate workers. Their basic daily wage was once said to be Rs. 900, later raised during the last government towards Rs. 1,700, though finally Rs. 1,350 was fixed. Given today’s cost of living, we, as the Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA), request the basic daily wage be set at Rs. 2,000, with additional allowances as appropriate.

¶ 07 I make this request directly to our President, your party leader, and the country’s President, Hon. Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who sat here with us in past debates on our people. I also appeal to the President’s trade union, the All Ceylon Estate Workers’ Union, whose leader Hon. Kittnan Selvaraj has now been elected to Parliament.

¶ 08 Together with our TPA partner parties — Democratic People’s Front, Up-Country People’s Front, National Union of Workers — and with their unions, the All Ceylon Estate Workers’ Union should join hands to secure the Rs. 2,000 basic wage. Whether by Collective Agreement or otherwise, all unions representing the hill country must stand firm on the Rs. 2,000 basic. Only then can we raise living standards. Regardless of whether poverty indicators rise or fall, and whether you have been in office 50 or 100 days, without a just wage for estate workers who contribute significantly to national income, you cannot immediately uplift their living standards.

¶ 09 The Sri Lanka Tea Board’s mission states: “To increase foreign exchange earnings to the country through sustainable development of the Industry and thereby ensuring the economic development of the plantation community.” Yet the Board does not seem to focus on the workers’ welfare. Its composition includes the Chair, officials from Plantation, Finance, and Trade Ministries, Planters’ Association, Colombo Brokers’, Colombo Tea Traders’, Tea Exporters’, Tea Factory Owners’ Associations, the Federation of Tea Small Holdings Societies, and the Tea Small Holdings Development Authority — everyone is there, except the workers’ representatives. For nearly 200 years, the Board has operated focusing on industry metrics rather than workers’ welfare and fair wages.

¶ 10 When workers ask for a Rs. 2,000 basic daily wage, I propose a mechanism: impose a cess on tea exports and channel targeted relief to exporters engaging in value addition, enabling a rise in workers’ daily wages. Not simply raise wages arbitrarily, but fund it systematically. Only then can we uplift living standards. The most vulnerable and underprivileged segment in Sri Lanka is the plantation community; until we uplift them to the national level, nothing will change. I urge the government to listen. If we do not improve the living conditions of estate workers, we cannot ever develop the whole country. As a people’s representative, I state this.

¶ 11 Thank you for the opportunity.