Letters
to the Editor
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| Confusion
over half-way conversions The Chairman of this Authority was the Head of the Weights & Measures Division of the Department of Internal Trade (presently known as the Measurement Units, Standards & Services Dept.). However, this Authority did not carry out the conversion to its completion. It allowed both the old Imperial system of units and the metric system to exist side by side for certain sectors of the economy. The result is the confusion that prevails today in the use of measurement units. The weights and measures and units to be used in the country are governed by an Act of Parliament -the Measurement Units, Standards and Services Act No. 35 of 1995. The legal units to be used for commercial transactions are given in Schedule 3 of this Act. These are only the units of the International System of Units (the current metric system). However one notices that both the electronic and print media using illegal units frequently, namely the old Imperial units. For example, the units, ‘inch’, ‘mile’, ‘foot’ and the ‘acre’ are being used in television news broadcasts and newspaper articles. The Irrigation Dept. is apparently using ‘Acre-feet’ to measure the capacity of reservoirs. The law is heavily transgressed in land transactions where an old Imperial unit known as the ‘Perch” is commonly used. The correct units to be used for land area measurements are the square metre and the hectare (10 000 square metres). The illegal units are even written in present day legal documents such as land deeds. Also some licensed surveyors still use (after 31 years of metrication) Acres, Roods and Perches to indicate land area in survey plans. The Dept. primarily responsible for the implementation of the law, the Measurement Units, Standards and Services Dept. (MUSSD) is silent on these transgressions. It happily carries on fighting its own internal battles. Most schoolchildren and young adults must be finding it difficult to comprehend these illegal units as they are no longer being taught at school or in the university. All the subjects taught in schools and universities use the metric system. If these illegal units continue to be used by the older generation, the metric change and the consequent advantages of the metric system would never accrue to Sri Lanka. India for example converted to the metric system as early as 1956 and today no semblance of old Imperial units can be found in day-to-day activities. One can understand this as older Sri Lankans (including those who run television and newspaper offices) are still heavily dependent on things British. They cannot come out of their colonial yoke. However, this does not mean that the younger generation should be committed to this bondage and made to suffer. It is high time that the MUSSD woke up and carried out its responsibilities correctly. In addition the media should also educate their staff to use correct measurement units in their publications and broadcasts. Dr.
G. M. S. de Silva ‘Have
you got solutions, then you’ve got our vote’ We, the voters of this country, cannot even sit in our own parlours in peace, thanks to all our provincial and national leaders who have over and over again ignored the bare necessities. The country is swaming with mosquitoes. The drains that have been constructed in the towns and cities have not been tested for their gradient. And the result is that they get waterlogged. This helps the breeding of mosquitoes and flies, both disease carriers, putting us in danger from all types of diseases. Soon we will have to walk around with straw hats fixed with a net-like curtain to be spared of attacks from these insects. The roads are a mess. The main roads that are being used by politicians are maintained while one could easily plant coconut saplings in the potholes found in other roads. Travelling on these roads in ill-maintained buses or in a poor man's vehicle the three wheeler, even the few bones in our bodies rattle. The local bodies have no money to repair these roads but they have enough money to maintain a double cab. In the rainy season one cannot find the road or the drain because it is all one mass of muddy water. Go to their plush offices, built with our money, the employees act as if they are doing us a big favour by collecting our rates and taxes or checking some file or document for some information. Hand over a housing plan and approval is given according to the length of your purse. The same applies to any complaint regarding environmental matters. So what are we going to do now? Before everything this country has to be cleaned. If the load of garbage is too much, then lessen it by providing some form of simple recycling method like household compost bins for the whole country at a subsidized rate. Do you have a systematic garbage removal policy to implement Mr. Councillor? Then you can have our vote. So when they come round asking for your precious vote, ask them for their fool-proof systematic garbage policy and decide on whom to vote. If they do not put forward anything and wait for us to simply come and vote for those faces peeping out of all those abandoned garbage collection points and walls and trees, let's not vote but spoil our votes in protest and allow only the hangers-on and the beneficiaries like contractors and law breakers to vote them into office. B.R.S. All I need is your love I know what
it means to be free I am the friend
of the desert I know what
it means to be free I am the guardian
of the rain forests I know what
it means to be free I am
that Unknown Villager -Vijay Sahni
'Letters
to the Editor' should be brief and to the point. Address them to: 'Letters to the Editor, The Sunday Times, P.O.Box 1136, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Or e-mail to editor@sundaytimes.wnl.lk or features@sundaytimes.wnl.lk Please note that letters cannot be acknowledged or returned. |
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