President Ranil Wickremesinghe presenting the 2024 Budget proposals said:
“Agriculture needs to be uplifted to a competitive level. Value added agricultural products need to be produced. Agriculture needs to be modernised focusing on exports. Provisions will be made by this Budget for agricultural modernisation projects, smallholder agribusiness partnership initiatives, and crop diversification. Further, work plans will be launched to uplift and nurture the fishing industry and to utilise new technology and knowledge for the fisheries industry.
I will set up Provincial Agricultural and Fisheries Modernisation Boards to assist in development of agricultural and fisheries sectors. All Agrarian Service Centres will be upgraded as Agriculture Modernisation Centres. For this purpose, a joint program consisting of the government, private sector, farmers and agronomists will be implemented from the 2023/24 Maha season. For these activities, I propose to allocate Rs. 2,500 million.
The purpose of this is to increase the paddy production from 3.5 metric tonnes to 8 metric tonnes per hectare. This would give us the opportunity to utilise the uncultivated paddy fields to other useful cultivation activities while improving the productivity of the paddy production of the dry zone sector.
The productivity of paddy cultivation in the wet zone is very low. The law does not permit to grow any other crop instead of paddy cultivation. I propose to remove legal impediments to grow other crops in such bare uncultivated land.
In addition, I propose to allocate 300,000 acres from other government lands including State Plantation Corporation, Mahaweli A and B Zones, and Land Reform Commission for large scale agriculture activities.
Optimising productivity
Increasing the productivity of the fisheries sector is the most sustainable way to improve fishermen’s livelihoods and incomes. For this purpose, the government is starting to cooperate with the private sector in the management of fishery harbours. In this way, the necessary infrastructure including warehouses can be developed to reduce wastage and optimise productivity.
About 35 per cent of the country’s total fish harvest comes from the Northern Sea. To improve the facilities necessary for those functions, Rs. 500 million will be allocated.
A quantity of 29 per cent of Sri Lanka’s total fish harvest comes from the freshwater fisheries and aquaculture sector. There are about 12,000 permanent and temporary reservoirs in Sri Lanka. The total extent of the reservoirs is about 260,000 hectares. For the development of the freshwater fishing industry, I allocate Rs. 200 million.
To maintain the sustainability of this programme in the future, I further propose to prepare a program to encourage the fishing community by establishing a revolving fund through community participation.
Small tanks play a crucial role in irrigation and agriculture in the country. This becomes more important with the effects of climate change. I propose to assign the responsibilities of rehabilitating small tanks to the farmer organisations of the respective areas. We will provide the necessary authority and support to the farmer organisations. Then they can work together with the private sector to rehabilitate small tanks. Our aim is to increase agricultural production through these measures.”
President Ranil Wickremesinghe doubling as the Minister of Finance labours much to put the economy right after its unprecedented decline which cannot be solely attributed to the corona virus epidemic because a country is expected to withstand such shocks that have been part and parcel of the history of any country, just as much as ours, under normal circumstances. He said the other day that he could not come to power earlier because he did not want to give false promises. Even today his opponents do so promising to distribute largess thereby insulting the people because it not alms that they want like beggars but to live as respectable citizens by dint of their toil. He also said that some in the main opposition party do not allow those among them who are willing to participate in discussions with the IMF team to do so only showing that there is lack of leadership.
Restoring the economy
President Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected with the support in Parliament of 6.9 million people through their representatives, of which his opponents seem to be unaware. So, let him be at his unfinished business of restoring the economy to its status before it tumbled down as never before. The stark fact is that he as Prime Minister rescued the economy from a near -2% growth rate abyss in 2000 into over 6% in 2001.
They should note that removing French Controller-General of Finances M. Turgot, to whom and British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, President Ranil Wickremesinghe was equated in this column previously, was the main cause of the French Revolution of 1789.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe must be allowed to carry through his economic reform program and those eager for power must not repeat the grave mistake of not letting President J.R. Jayewardene to be in power for a Third Term.
The paramount need of the hour is putting country before self!
It is a pity that while providing free education is greatly benefiting the people below the poverty line it cannot be said so with regard to health services. The reason for this discrepancy is that while health services involve the element of providing medicines free the availability of which without a shortage is a matter of life and death, the deficiencies in providing education gratis does not have such an immediate effect on the recipients.
So, the government must make sure that the most common drugs prescribed by OPD clinic doctors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as Hypertension, Ischemic Heart Disease like Losartan, Atorvastatin, Gastro-resistant Aspirin are available at hospital pharmacies. When clinic patients, mostly of advanced age, are transferred from national, teaching and general hospitals to base hospitals, it must be ensured that they get their medicines and investigation done as earlier. But the arrangement for sharing of resources available at the show-piece National Hospital of Sri Lanka by clinic patients transferred to base hospital seems to be sabotaged!
It is deplorable that elderly patients become the laughing stock of not only base hospital minor staff, paramedics but clinic doctors and even clinic heads when requests are made to give a note regarding the non-availability of certain drugs to get them from the Colombo OPD clinic and even investigations not possible to be done at base hospitals attended to there. The excuse for not giving a note is that drugs such as Atorvastatin may not be available even in Colombo whereas the fact is that it had never been unavailable in Colombo!
Out of the drugs prescribed for Benign Prostatomegally (non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate gland) at the Genito Urinary Clinic, Finasteride has not been available at the clinic pharmacy for years while Tamsulosin has been there only on and off making it impossible for patients take them regularly because the cost, when purchased from private pharmacies, is prohibitive. A single dose of Finasteride 5 mg costs over Rs. 60 while a Tamsulosin 0.4 mg capsule is over Rs 40 a patient having to pay more than Rs. 100 a day for these life drugs!
