Iluk can reduce poverty, save foreign exchange 

My craze for motoring in the rural backwaters once took me to Sandamal Eliya, five miles before one reaches Tantirimale.

The Sandamal Eliya Temple is run by Venerable Viharegama Sangarakkhita, a pupil of the chief monk at Tantirimale, who was killed by the LTTE.

I thought I was lost in the Illuk [spear grass] jungles of Mahawilachchiya and Tantirimale. I motored through the dense, seemingly endless illuk forest. I saw patches of illuk everywhere I looked. People had even resorted to burning illuk, which invaded their cultivations and gardens. When I finally reached the Sandamal Eliya temple I spoke with Ven Sangarakkhita and he said illuk had become a nuisance to the people in the area. 

Then, I recalled that the machinery imported for Valachenai to make paper was to use illuk grass as raw material. What happened was that illuk grass was exploited fast and the machine idled. It was our engineers and scientists who for the first time figured out that straw could be used for making paper. Then the farmers at Hingurakgoda and Polonnaruwa made good money by selling truckloads of straw to the paper mill. My interests in industrial development made me visit the paper factory several times. 

Our land is blessed with fertile land and rain, but some people are without enough food. The other day I came across a family of three living in a small house on a two-and-a-half perch land at Bandaranayakepura, Rajagiriya. Its members skipped meals. Go to the colonies at Padaviya and Mahawilachchiya, the situation is far worse. The rains will help harvest two crops of paddy, but the cost of getting machinery to plough and harvest is exorbitant. Once a portion of the crop is sold to recover production costs, etc., there is hardly any money left for the people, who go hungry.

The Illuk grass at Mahawilachchiya can come to their rescue if engineers and scientists can make it possible to use it for paper making. The task only requires paper making machines from India or China. It is a simple operation – cutting the illuk into small pieces, then churning it with a few substances to make it a pulp and then we can make cardboard or paper. All this is done with a small-scale machine, and the people will find employment and income while the country will be able to save the foreign exchange now being spent to import paper. 

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s team has done remarkably well during the past few months by reviving the Valaichenai Paper Factory; a factory closed and neglected for over half a century till the North and the East were liberated from the clutches of the LTTE.

I look forward to seeing the day when the illuk grass will be used to alleviate poverty in the dry zone.

Dr. GARVIN KARUNARATNE

Former GA Matara, Author of How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka and Alternative Programmes of Success, Godages, 2006; How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development, Kindle/Godages, 2017 

garvin_karunaratne @ hotmail.com