Features

Focus on Hambantota

Rainwater, coal power plants and tourism for Hambantota

Story and pictures by Feizal Samath

In the last three to six months it has been grappling with a prolonged drought that has ruined paddy fields and depleted water resources. This has forced residents to accept, rather reluctantly, food and other aid from a mass relief effort from various Sri Lankan individuals and groups plus donor countries.

The good news however is that the drought and near-starvation scenario for low-income groups have propelled the authorities to urgently look for other water and energy sources. Serious efforts are also underway, by government authorities to develop an international harbour in Hambantota.

While coal power plants are being looked at seriously, various non-governmental agencies are also working on or have proposed various ways of ensuring the district doesn't run dry, like rainwater harvesting systems which the authorities should seriously consider supporting instead of rejecting these ideas.

Sri Lanka, experts say, gets far more rainfall that any other South Asian country but other than collecting this rain in reservoirs there is no organized rainwater harvesting efforts devised for simple, home consumption.

In some homes in the region, there are huge tea pot-like cement collection tanks that are attached to the gutter of the house. The water in a tank filled to the brim can last for four to five months in a household – what a rich and available resource if we utilize it properly.

Apart from this the region has enormous potential in terms of industry and in particular tourism with the Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce (HDCC) being in the forefront of efforts to boost investment and trade with the outside world.

The district has a population of 600,000 and is one of the most impoverished parts of Sri Lanka, because it has been under-developed. It is an agricultural region with paddy, other cash crops and animal husbandry.

According to Azmi Thassim, executive director of HDCC, Hambantota provides 10 to 15 percent of Colombo meat needs due to a sizable number of cattle and goats. He said while poultry is a new industry, fisheries and rice mills are also increasing in size and scope in the district. 

"One of our problems is that of marketing. We lost 30-40 percent of produce due to lack of proper storage and packaging," he said adding that the tourism potential is enormous given the amazing diversity of lagoons, rivers, blowholes, waterfalls and even a tea estate that the region has to offer. 

"If an international harbour is constructed (as planned) it would not only boost employment, industry and exports but also pave the way for luxury liners to call over and for these high-spending tourists to make use of our wonderful southern beaches and other attractions," he added. 

Hambantota's economy, apart from agriculture and animal husbandry, is dependant on remittances from Sri Lankan workers (from this region) in the Middle East and donor aid from Norway and other countries.

An excellent one-stop shop!

I needed to talk to farmers, residents, industrialists, fishermen, women and social workers. Who could organize all this for me?

I then came across a newsletter put out by the Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce and thought maybe they could help.

That turned out to be an enormous and enriching experience.

Calling the chamber office, I was connected to its executive director Azmi Thassim who not only organized a complete work plan and a schedule, even arranging interviews and meetings with people I wanted to interview, but was also an excellent and charming host.

The chamber is a one-stop shop and proved it during my visit. "Whom would you like to meet? 

Please let us know and we will arrange it," said Thassim.

Arrange he did, not only to meet industrialists, hoteliers, social workers, salt processors and even women activists, but also made sure that I visit the nearby Yala Wildlife park and the Bundala bird sanctuary.

Hambantota chamber helps to develop entrepreneurs

"It was more of an accident that the chamber came into being. Those who were involved in the formation of the association were a very committed lot and wanted some development for the region too," recalled Azmi Thassim, HDCC's executive director.

He said the chamber was planning a base line survey on the needs and demands in Hambantota and what it could offer to investors.

Norway has helped in the development of the region through the IRDP (Intergrated Regional Development Programme), spending Rs 1.2 billion to to Rs 1.3 billion between 1979 and 1999.

Nicholas Slade, a British volunteer and management consultant working at the chamber, said HDCC had more than 250 members and a staff of 13. 

He said it was the first district level chamber in Sri Lanka after which chambers in Kandy and Kurunegala were established. "There has been a lot of development during its existence with the main intention being to offer a one-stop shop facility for entrepreneurs," he said.

Slade said the chamber acts as a custodian for entrepreneur services with support from NORAD, the Norwegian aid agency. HDCC has a career service guidance unit that matches jobs for job seekers from a database. 

Ananda Fernando, manager marketing and training at HDCC, said that the chamber provides services to the entire district in addition to undertaking training and consultancy services.

He said the chamber, through the Hambantota Youth Business Trust supported by the Prince's Trust, UK, helps youth between 18 to 33 years to get started in business with small start-up loans.

Tourism map planned for southern region to boost arrivals

The project is financially backed by the Southern Development Authority (SDA) and the map cum brochure will provide details of the region – which includes Hambantota, Matara and Galle districts -, and highlight the beaches, star-class hotels, rivers, lagoons, cultural sites and other attractions.

"Separate maps would be prepared for the three districts catering to foreign and local tourists," noted Janaka de Silva, president of the Ruhunu Hoteliers Association and operations manager at the upmarket Oasis hotel in Hambantota.

De Silva said that tourism is a sensitive industry. "One bomb and we are in for hard times. 

Rebuilding is not easy," he said adding that hotels in the Hambantota region have, like many other hotels, suffered falling arrivals and were hoping for some recovery.

The two-year old Ruhunu Hoteliers Association stretches from Galle to Yala and has 14 members and was formed with the intention of looking after the interests of the industry in this region. 

The association has had many activities including seminars, workshops and training programmes for staff.

De Silva said some of the problems in Hambantota for the tourism industry were a shortage of water and daily power fluctuations. "The power fluctuations are pretty bad in Hambantota as power lines run across jungle terrain and when there is a problem it takes time to locate the fault."

Priyankara Wickremasekera, chairman/managing director of Priyankara hotel in Tissa, said hotels in the areas have been adversely affected by the airport blasts. "We get a lot of local tourist traffic visiting Yala and the Bundala bird sanctuary. 

We are looking for more local clientele and promoting some attractive packages for domestic tourists."

Ocean could produce wave-power energy, says officials

Dr Ivan Amarasinghe, director-general of the Sagara Vishwa Vidyalaya (Ocean University) based in Tangalle, said the institute provides opportunities to students to obtain diplomas and university degrees – through a system of accreditation to universities in Norway, Canada, Britain and Australia.

Amarasinghe, who has worked in Britain for many years before taking up his new job here this year, said that in Sri Lanka and many developing countries, the ocean provided vast resources though it was used for fishing purposes only.

"There are many things in the ocean that could be very productive like wave energy to produce electricity," he said adding that the institute would study ocean resources and also undertake consultancies in this field.

The university's technical name is the National Institute of Fisheries Nautical College (NIFNC) and it is attached to the Fisheries Ministry.

Husband-and-wife team designs middle-class homes

" We want to build affordable houses," says Dr. Seba Jayamaha, the managing director of Better Homes & Gardens Kotugoda (Pvt) Ltd who has a PhD in structural engineering from a US university. " Sadly some of the houses on offer in the market are far beyond the reach of the working class," concurs his wife, Surani Jayaweera Jayamaha, a company director and also a free-lance journalist.

The couple is offering a house from Rs 725,000 onwards which is much below some of the new homes available in the market, even outside the capital. The company has launched the " Better Homes & Gardens City" complex on a seven-acre block at Kotugoda on the Minuwangoda road off Jaela overlooking a beautiful paddy field.

It has four models of two bedroom houses and two models of three bedroom houses. These houses consist of 2/3 bedrooms, a living/dining, kitchen, verandah and tiled bathroom with imported fittings and the area varying from 550 square feet onwards. All houses are built on 10 perches of solid high land and provided with free telephone, water, and electricity connections. A playground and children's park is in the pipeline.

Jayamaha, who is using his American expertise in the project, said the company was able to build low cost houses compared to other high-cost developers because their overheads are low. " I do the designing and supervision with some other staff. We also have limited staff and have used our own finances to purchase the land rather than rely on bank loans," he said. Already 35 houses have been built and purchased by interested parties many of whom are husband-and-wife couples with a total monthly income of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000.

The company plans to start the second phase shortly and complete the entire complex of 100-plus houses in a year's time.

" We build these houses employing our own set of masons, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, painters and I supervise every step of the construction to maintain standards," he said.