Rural Hambantota
My family, ages ago, slowly migrated from around Dikwella to Galle to Panadura to Mount Lavinia and finally to Colombo. Now development is flowing back down, and cities like Matara and Galle are growing rapidly, more with the opening of the new highway. Yet the President remains fixated even further down south, on rural Hamabantota, as is the opposition’s Sajith Premadasa. I don’t get it.
The weird thing is that Mahinda isn’t exactly from Hambantota, he’s from Beliatta, near Tangalle. In the Hamabantota district, but still a good ways from Hambantota town. Hambanatota itself is a mostly Muslim fishing village with rocky beach and a lot of empty land. It is a flat and strange place, dry and sparsely populated. Yet this was the proposed site for a Commonwealth Games and the actual site for an international port and cricket stadium.
To reiterate, there is nothing in Hambantota town. There was one proper place to stay, the Peacock, not much to eat and a guest-house with a nice view and rather languid service. I think Virgina Woolf’s husband left a plaque somewhere as was stationed there.
Compare that to Matara which his a booming and I think beautiful town. The place has beaches but also a lot of car sales, a huge Arpico and increasingly prosperous locals. It’s also connected by highway to Colombo and, incidentally, has consistently lovely architecture. Take also Galle which has a literature festival, an attractive Fort and now also a direct connection to Colombo.
The Hambantota Port actually cuts off the town from the coastal road, you have to detour about 30-45 minutes around. In that sense, it’s actually more connected with Tangalle, Matara and Galle more than anything else. With proper road networks I guess all these things (the proposed airport included) could be 30 minutes away from actually populated areas, but as it is I don’t get it.
Perhaps it is part of a plan for a greater southern megapolis, which would make sense, but still, precious little development attention seems to be going to actually developing cities like Matara or actual natural harbors like Trincomallee. Also, something like the Commonwealth Games would be a game-changer for a city like Jaffna, and actual income growth is happening in the North-Central (Anuradhapura region) more than anywhere else, especially as it supplies a resurgent north and east.
Honestly, the myopic focus on Hambanatota may not be a complete waste in the end, but it doesn’t seem like the most efficient or effective use of funds. I’m not saying that the President’s focus their will fail, on the contrary, I wish it every chance of success. It’s just that an actual national policy would have a better chance of success.
Good question , does Beliatta fall within the Hambantota district?
If so it makes sense to promote Hambantota town rather than Beliatta, which is even smaller. Why that particular district? Because they are the big-wigs of that area. They feel like fish out of water in say Kandy or Colombo, so if Hambantota can make it big they can then lord over Kandy and Colombo, or something to that effect. All very feudal.
A soothsayer probably said something about Hambantota. That is at the end of the day how policy is made in this country. Even the 2.5 million target for tourists is because of a soothsayer.
What I don’t get is that the way they are going about in Hambantota, the actual people who live there will not benefit. When you transplant huge infrastructure like they are doing, the local people do not have the capacity to engage in any form of meaningful employment in such ventures simply because they do not have the abilties or the required skills. What will happen is an influx of people from other parts of the country (possibly internationally) into the area to take the best jobs. The people who lived in Hambantota may become marginalized as a result with only menial jobs available to them. What our government and people don’t seem to understand is that real development takes time and effort with set realistic goals and sustainability in mind. Not loans and pageantry and numbers pulled out of a soothsayers backside.
I agree with you, but them you must understand politics in Sri Lanka. People seem to favor someone who can deliver in the short term. So any government is helbent on showing change quickly – remember President Premadasa and his Gam Udawas and Clock Towers? Some of it did help the people but lot of it got wasted at the end. Same with this, but at a larger scale. I completely disagree with bidding for Commonwealth Games with Hambantota and was relieved to hear we didn’t win it, as if we had won, it would have caused a lot of embarresment (to say the least) compared to what happened to India – but, a project like the southern highway is brilliant – and I hope that sort of infrastructure gets done in many other places too.
Maybe the idea is that by focusing on Hambantota you give other areas the breathing room they need to develop. Government support can be so stifling! Or maybe it’s because Rajapakse was the minister for fisheries at one point in time. Maybe he still has a soft spot for fisher families.
Probably coz of the vast space and less rainfall making it an ideal place for as u said “a Megapolis”.
Anyways it makes sense to incorporate leisure & business complexes to places with less rain fall noh? else residential areas tend to flood and be polluted (noise, trash).
That way ppl can sleep at night without having to hear the raucous sounds of the improperly built night club or the busy roads.
or it can be merely a result of corruption after all Lankan politicians & people are not known for common sense eh.
There was nothing in vegas in the 50s.
No arguemnt there. Most people can only see short term, which is why most development is such a mess anyways. You need a balance though between short and long term with a good overall strategy. That’s not done here (and of course in many other places but since I live in Sri Lanka, I’m more concerned about SL). The southern highway is excellent but that took something like 8 years for planning and implementation.
And you think Vegas is a good development model? Do you have any idea of the environmental issues there? You’re views on development are quite as bad as your views on economics.
The Southern highway is a good concept but the execution was bad. We will have to see how well it works once more traffic starts to flow.
Where ever there is development there have been environmental issues, that doesn’t negate the fact that Vegas was a dust bowl that now sustain millions of people and generates billions dollars of economic activity. And you can say this about just about every mid western american city. 19th century London had a ton of environmental issues yet we don’t see people talking about how london is terrible failure. Posterity will judge hambanthota, just as we have judged london & vegas.
and people who yap about governance and the environment generally tend to do very little beyond the yapping bit.
Lol…Dodo. Read a bit more about Vegas and the issues there with long term sustainability. The water issue is already a significant problem that will have many economic costs in the future. You cannot compare London which has a river running through it, with Las Vegas. That comparison in itself shows that you do not understand the basics of development (somewhat like when you said Mihin was running at a profit). Learn the basics first and actually try and understand the situation.
Good point about concentrating on development in the north and/or east. I think those areas has vast potential. It’s about time that other cities started coming up away from the usual Colombo, Kandy, Kurunagala, Matara, etc.
Water issue has been issue for all american cities in the west & mid-west, not just vegas. People have been saying California will imminently run dry since 30s. It’s the standard nay sayer whining. But people figured out a way around it, and people will continue to do so in the future. And All this talk about higher economic cost is bananas since when have higher economic costs destroyed cities especially the one’s of this magnitude.
London certainly had no water shortage issues but it was facing a whole sleuth of other environmental problems. And had to bear ‘higher economic costs’ in order to clean up their act, especially given the technology available at that time. that was the simple connection you failed to realize.
And mihin is running at an operational profit. Whatever loss you see now is a consequence accrued financial costs. Which is saying something, considering american airways just applied for chapter 11 protection.
And what you fail to realize is that the right approach is to prevent paying costs in the future by designing things correctly from the start. Hence the word sustainable development. Once you push ecological systems to the brink no matter what the technological solutions are, you cannot bring back those ecological services without huge costs. This is especially true when it comes to essentials like water. What people warned about in the 30’s was a water crisis in the future, which is what has happened now. The costs to agriculture and jobs in California are huge because of the poorly planned development there. The Freeway systems are under capacity and a lot of them are in need of revamps that Caltrans simply cannot afford.
Maybe you are ok with passing on costs to future generations so that you can enjoy some benefits, but that is not something I am comfortable with.
RE American Airlines, because someone else is shit is not a good excuse to be shit yourself.