Since the Railway Department was initiated and rail services started over 160 years ago, Sri Lanka has been importing train tickets from Japan, Germany and many European countries annually spending millions of dollars.
In a bid to stop this ‘Dollars drain for the import of rail tickets’ a Sri Lankan entrepreneur, Udaya Gunaratne has designed the world’s first rail ticket using recycled paper and agro seeds. “If you want you can discard or plant it!”
He said that in addition to recycling paper he adds tomato, mustard and chili seeds to make this train ticket. When you plant this ticket to the soil these seeds will get activated and plants will spring up. This would be ideal for home gardening and even people in apartments can grow by using these train tickets.”
Gunaratne who is also the Chairman of Ceylon Eco Friendly Products (Pvt) Ltd, a recycling company with over 30 years in the paper industry, said that used train tickets can also be recycled. He said it is very sad to note that Sri Lanka has been importing millions of train tickets from European countries for the past 150 years. This is a drain on foreign exchange.
“I presented my 100% ‘Made in Sri Lanka’ train ticket to the highest railway authorities in September last year and was told that Sri Lanka was going to introduce e-tickets and this system is going to end. But this is a blatant lie as last month tenders were called requesting for companies to forward bids to print train tickets.”
The tender for the printing of third class tickets is said to be USD 500,000. He said that this tender is designed in such a manner that an inventor like him who is presenting a product for the first time gets disqualified as the tender procedure calls for ‘experience’ in printing train tickets. It’s said that the cost of printing a train ticket is Rs. 2.75.
He said that it’s sad to note that there is a railway mafia not permitting any new local players to enter the supply business. “Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardana who is trying to lower the expenses of the Railway Department should look at this and try to break up this mafia.”
Gunaratne has also designed and executed the world’s first project to recycle ‘shredded currency’ notes discarded by Central Banks all over the world by using natural resources.
“I have proposed to get these ‘shredded currency’ notes to Sri Lanka for my company to recycle and this process can bring over USD 75 billion in annual revenue to Sri Lanka.”
Shirajiv Sirimane