Dr Sarath Obeysekera

– 5 09 2018  – 02:32  – 498 views  – ඉන්දික හේවාවිතාරණ

ආණ්ඩුව විසින් රටට උදා කළ යහපාලනය සමහර පිරිස් අවභාවිත කිරීම නිසා ජන ජීවිතයට දැඩි බාධා එල්ල වෙමින් තිබෙන බව ආපදා කළමනාකරණ හා වාරිමාර්ග අමාත්‍ය දුමින්ද දිසානායක මහතා සඳහන් කළේය.ජනජීවිතයට බාධා එල්ල වන ආකාරයට උද්ඝෝෂණ, විරෝධතා රැලි වැනි දේවල් සිදු වෙමින් තිබෙන බවත්, මේ නිසා කඩිනමින් මෙම කටයුතු කිරීමට පොදු ස්ථානයක් නම් කළ යුතුව තිබෙන බවත් ඒ මහතා පැවසීය.

Opinion published in Lanka Web sometime back proposing more meaningful options

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2017/03/02/we-should-not-prohibit-demonstrations-but-charge-for-the-national-losses/

We should not prohibit Demonstrations but charge for the national losses 
Posted on March 2nd, 2017

Dr Sarath Obeysekera

Yesterday I was passing by the road way in front of President’s office and noted some union members of Tamil community  holding demonstrations. By 12 noon I was going back and police was trying control another group of people holding placards protesting about something else . Doctors and some medical staff were demonstrating in front Gampaha railway station inconveniencing the public.

We see that it is daily occurrence in our life

We also  heard that  under the principles of Yahaplanaya ,government is planning to allocate certain designated areas for Demo’s  in order to minimize the inconvenience to the public .We all know that there is massive loss to the country because of loss of man hours of  working people and over consumption of fuel due to traffic jams caused  by road blocks .

There is a solution to avoid or minimize the losses if we carry out following

Government should do a simple calculation of 500-1000 vehicles which burn fuel ( i,e 10 litres per vehicle for 2 hours costing 1500 Rs per vehicle and for 1000 vehicles cost will be Rs 1,500,000 )  .Loss of productive man-hours  ( i.e  3000 people at Rs 200 per manhour costing Rs 400×3000 = Rs  1,200.000 )

Total loss  is minimum  Rs 2,700,000 /= without considering the cost of police force and water used for  cannons !) .You may add  another 2,300,000 Rs for maintaining law order including filing action against violators of public peace)

Total cost of one single demonstration for two hours will be 5 million Rs and if one carry on demo  for 10 hours in will cost 50 million Rs to the country .

My golden suggestion is allow registered unions or political parties to hold demos other than in designated  areas and impose a charge of 5 million Rs for two hours –say in Lipton Circle or  Lotus round about .This amount should be paid to National Development fund.Total contribution to  the national  development  fund for a month will exceed  one billion Rupees.  ( unions  and parties can hold demo’s free during weekends !)

Unions may have to increase membership fees for members including party members to cover the payment charges for holding demo’s !!

I am sure this action by the government will be praised by IMF and World Bank .ADB ,OECF .JAICA etc rather than increasing taxes and price of essential goods .

Dr Sarath Obeysekera