The Hon. K. Kader Masthan

¶ 01 Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.

¶ 02 Hon. Presiding Member, I thank you for the time to speak on the committee stage allocations for the Ministry of Plantation and Community Infrastructure.

¶ 03 In the past, plantation programs and arrangements were made only for certain districts. In contrast, under the previous Government we extended rubber—once confined to the wet zone—into the dry zone, particularly to areas like Monaragala, where rubber has now been successfully established with sufficient raw material output.

¶ 04 Similarly, in the Northern Province, we created a coconut zone and made arrangements for coconut cultivation. In the current year, funding has been arranged to establish 16,000 new acres of coconut in the North. I commend this. We must also develop palmyrah there, just as coconut, because war destroyed hundreds of thousands of palmyrah trees. By reestablishing palmyrah at scale, we can create jobs. Presently, people produce and market various goods from palmyrah inputs, but incomes remain inadequate. Therefore, please bring forward palmyrah development programs, as our people’s needs are great.

¶ 05 Compared to the South and elsewhere, the North previously received very limited allocations due to war and related issues. Now that such conditions no longer exist, please bring major plantation developments to those areas.

¶ 06 We often think of coconut, rubber, and tea as “plantation crops.” But we should also introduce alternative plantation-scale crops—like India does—not stopping at primary production, but moving to value addition. For edible oils, we should introduce mustard and sunflower at plantation scale. Sri Lanka has suitable lands in the North for such crops. Today many areas are designated “forest” by gazette, measured via helicopter GPS, without consulting the local officers or people. In the previous Government, we advanced to the final stage of releasing lands gazetted after 1985 that are not dense forests. We should release those lands for productive use—cultivating mustard and sunflower—so people can earn incomes. Similarly, spices like clove, pepper, and nutmeg can be developed.

¶ 07 There are experienced people: many upcountry families displaced in 1983 now live in our Northern districts. They are engaged in all forms of cultivation, including plantations, and are good entrepreneurs. Some still lack land because of “forest” issues. If such designated lands are released and given to them, crops once confined to the wet zone can be grown in our areas too. Hon. Minister, consider their experience and simply provide land; they will cultivate these plantation crops successfully.

¶ 08 I also note that we need not label “upcountry Tamil people” by ethnicity—say “upcountry people,” as communities of all ethnicities live there. Give what is due based on merit, without communal phrasing.

¶ 09 On another matter, Tamil-speaking people had high hopes in the Presidential Commission on Missing Persons. The report has been tabled in Parliament, but no action has followed. Justice must be done, and those responsible punished. Please take action based on that report.

¶ 10 Similarly, on the Trincomalee campus issue and the Mylanthanai 11-person killing inquiry—reports have been tabled, but no action. We expect the Government to act and punish those involved in such barbaric acts.

¶ 11 On transport, I could not join the Transport/Highways/Ports debate. However, I again request urgent rehabilitation and opening of the road from Puttalam to Mannar via Marichchukkaddi to Jaffna. Using this route instead of Colombo–Anuradhapura–Vavuniya would save about 78 km. Communities earlier displaced along this route could be resettled when reopened. District Coordinating Committees even resolved on this, but no action was taken due to political sabotage. We have also requested the President. Minister Bimal Rathnayake has stated he will appoint an environmental services team and take proper steps. I thank him and conclude.