An Open Letter to Chief Minister, Northern Province

An Open Letter to Chief Minister,

Northern Province

Chief Minister C.V. Vigneswaran

It is very much appropriate to remind you at this moment that you are at helm of the Northern Provincial Council as a result of the voters of the Northern Province, emanating a Himalayan trust on the backdrop of you were a Chief Justice, and you were only known as Justice Vigneswaran, but an unknown element as politician. Therefore the people who voted you into the office of CM, expected and believed that you will execute your duties towards the people very honestly, with reflection to the demands and need of the people. An attitude of all the time and at any time for the people will not push you to faults and blunders.

I am drawing your attention, in particular to one issue, to which you have approached in a very delinquent manner, without realizing the seriousness as well as long run consequences of the issue that will affect the present generation as well as the generations to come. On the whole it will affect the entire community as a respectable ethnic group within their own land and completely shake the whole foundation of the Tamil Nationalistic identity. 

Do not pretend that you don’t know what I am talking about. I am just referring to the way you handled the entire crisis of central peninsula well water getting contaminated by spent oil, pumped into the soil with total ignorance to agriculture and bio-environment.  When information about the wells contaminated and polluted by hydrocarbon emancipated, with thirty long years of judicial service of judicious jurisdiction behind you, what you should have done is to appraise the affected parties’ complaints through your commonsense and natural senses; leave alone the huge deleterious impact on bio life of central peninsula, which otherwise should have been the prime concern as the Chief Minster.

On the contrary, to public’s believes and expectations, you have called in the accused party within your chambers, at arms stretched length rather the than the “desperately affected phenomenon” of Jaffna Peninsula.

Therefore, I strongly opine that you have inherited this fraudulent practice all along your carrier despite being seated on an isolated and elevated seat of judicious jurisdiction in a court room for thirty long years. After all now you are occupying the seat of usually occupied by many notorious, uneducated and unethical politicians and thus you can achieve your personal goals of filling up the coffers with much ease and comfortable, than with previous job of authority of jurisdiction. Hence you are truly smart enough to change the job titles from Chief Justice to Chief Minister in order to make the ends meet with scant respect to ethnic identity!

When some truly worrying professional experts of relevant field met you after you and your council have autocratically, otherwise by fraud dispelled the reports of contamination and pollution water /fertile soil you have told them that you are prioritizing Tamil Nationalistic aspirations through this issue! Nonsense, A human count alone cannot survive the identity of the ethnicity!!  First of all you must understand that fertile soil and abundant fresh water are intrinsic foundation for the Tamil Nationalistic aspirations.

All your actions clearly points out that you are working hand in hand conniving with southern racial fanatics with an objective of destroying the survival  of Tamils as an respectable ethnic group within their own land. All your calls towards Tamil National Ethnic Issues have become uttering of ostentatious  nature by your action, like that of the southern Sinhala Politicians take the sword of racism in order to guard against their fraudulent and corrupt practices.

You have become an ostrich of the desert land when you decided to manipulate the water contamination crisis through appointing handpicked eye washing “experts” of utilizable water pollution, with your mind already fixed for an ill directed  analysis on water that has been already smelling hydrocarbon and visibly contaminated by oil seeped through soil. You have made all the highly qualified people you handpicked look like fools in order to protect the Northern Power Plant out of the way, by your Desert Ostrich action – the ostrich buries its head into the desert soil and imagine that whole world is not seeing anything! Mind you if the Northern Power Plant continues pump the brunt hydrocarbon into the soil unabatedly – as you have painstakingly comforted NPP to do so – highly fertile land Jaffna Peninsula would soon become land of Desert where only ostriches can survive!!  Above statement is absolutely vindicated when one analysis the composition of the panel you picked to fabricate and consciously refute the fact that wells have polluted by spent fuel, which is very much conspicuous by visibility and odour – the panel

Names	Specializations
1.      Dr. A. Atputharajah	Electrical Engineer, Consultant NPP
2.      Dr. K. Velayuthamoorthy	Inorganic Chemist
3.Dr. Nalina Gnanavelrajah	Agriculture-chemist Land use
4.Dr. C.N. Nachchinatkiniyan	Community Medicine
5. Prof S.A. Nobert	A Geographer – Colombo
6. Dr. T. Jeyasingam	VC Eastern University,  Botanist
7. Prof. S. B. Weerakoon	Hydrologist, Peradeniya University
8. Prof. R.V.K Piyadasa
9. Dr. S. Raveentran

 It is established that no one in the above list holds the required qualification to negate the complaints of polluted water springs and that itself clearly vindicates your motives. In addition your first choice in above list Dr. A. Atputharajah has been contracted as a Consultant Electrical Engineer by the disputed Northern Power Plant (NPP) when you appointed him into the panel that is purportedly verifying the pollution of fertile soil and as a result water springs as well by the NPP’s waste Hydrocarbon oil. Dr. A. Atputharajah as Dean Faculty of Engineering, University of Jaffna and as Consultant NPP has failed miserably to advise his pay masters  on safely disposing the dangerous disposals born out of Electricity Generation.  Absolutely dangerous to mankind!      

You may argue that for the need of continued electricity supply that you have to support and defend the NPP, but just through the stroke of a pen you would have asked them to safely remove the burnt oil pond that had been gradually built over the years and to install a mechanism to remove the burnt oil day by day without just pumping into the soil, if you are judicious enough to properly execute that is expected of your office, since the NPP being a complete private entity.  
 Instead what did you do, you allowed NPP to hurriedly hide the entire accumulated burnt oil pond through a bore deep into the ground, and everything got worsened!

From your actions and from the behaviour of Dr. A. Atputharajah as Dean Faculty of Engineering, University of Jaffna who had acted with a clear conflict of interests for the greediness of pay roles, with total disregard to the mankind, It amply clear and proves that autonomous to the provinces and to the Universities would play havoc and it will continue to spread damaging and destroying natural resources of humanity.    

Coming back to the your eye wash panel, Prof. S. B. Weerakoon, a Hydrologist was the closest to the required qualification from University Peradeniya, though not exactly, I strongly doubt that  he would have contributed anything tangibly to your course though you have inserted the name may be through the friendship acquired through court chamber days of your earlier carrier. 

Anyway, if I assume that you have acted with some transparency and purity, Prof. S. B. Weerakoon would have led the panel – and it is a fact beyond any doubt the panel submitted a more than 50 page report, but has been summarized to mere 4 pages by your council of ministers in concurrence with ideas of Dr. A. Atputharajah, for the purpose of publishing, in order to complete the eye wash!

You shouldn’t have appointed experts to negate the reports of water polluted visibly and by the odour conspicuously of hydrocarbon, Instead you should have sought for expertise in   alternatives for fueling thermo power plant (there are many) if you are executing prudently  and really genuine to the people who elected you to the post of Chief Minister.

Many countries are using collected waste as direct fueling for thermo power plants, make a visit to one of many states of USA, UK, Norway, Holland, China, Japan, South Korea or Vietnam along with your coaxer friend Dr. A. Atputharajah – and introduce the technology to Northern Province, which have multifaceted benefits, including abundantly available cheap fueling and facilitates solid waste management with huge profits if properly planned and executed. By the way it is reported that Sri Lanka Fairway Group has just embarked on making fertilizer and generating electricity with garbage at the new dumping site Karadiyana, Pelliyandela  and you may get in touch with that company as well.

I pray the Lord Aarumugam to bless and make the damage you all have done to Jaffna Peninsula to be temporary in nature for the sake of the people who had been tormented by thirty years of war!  

Thank You

With Best Regards

Dr. S. Mahadeva

An Open letter to Dr. A. Padeniya President GMOA, from Dr. Sarath Gamini De Silva A member SLMC

Dr. A Padeniya

 Dr. A. Padeniya,

President,

Government Medical 

Officers’ Association,

Colombo.

Dear Dr. Padeniya,

Having observed the various developments in the health sector and medical education in the past few years, I thought of writing to you on my appraisal of the current situation. I hope it is not too late in the day to write to you.

I write as a senior physician, a medical teacher, a member of the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) for 10 years, and a former Vice President and a long-serving committee member of the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) in the past. I have been in the fore front of many GMOA trade union activities, occasional strikes, and was a part of the public face of the GMOA in TV discussions, press conferences etc. 

You were considered a great asset by all in the GMOA as a man who knew his facts and studied the issues in depth before coming for any discussions. I still remember how in our negotiations over salary issues, you had at your fingertips all details of the comparative salary scales of all categories in the health sector. I remember congratulating you when you were elected the President on the first two occasions.

Let me clarify my position regarding SAITM at the very outset. I do so as a member of the SLMC who took part in the initial discussions with Dr. Neville Fernando on the establishment of SAITM, took part in many relevant discussions in the SLMC until 2012 and also was part of the UGC team inspecting the medical school.

I have no doubt that the SAITM authorities ignored all advice and guidance given by the SLMC on numerous occasions. Instead they have relied on political patronage to get the approval in a surreptitious way. How three cabinet ministers keep agitating for the sake of this private enterprise raises many questions as to what their obligations are

I have little sympathy for the students and their parents as they have been adequately warned regularly by the SLMC over the years on the fact that this institution was not recognised by the medical council. I fail to understand why even some experienced doctors took the risk of admitting their children to a medical school lacking SLMC approval.

That being said, I accept that any solution to the current crisis should recognise the necessity of allowing those students to continue their medical studies. Once that is done, this fraudulent medical school should be closed down. It is not practical for the State to take over every private medical school getting into difficulties. With plans in the pipeline for establishing medical schools elsewhere in the country, there is no necessity for one in Malabe at State expense. I accept that there is room for a properly constituted private medical school in Sri Lanka, guided and recognised by the SLMC. 

Let me now examine the role of the GMOA in the SAITM affair. It has expressed its opposition to the existence of SAITM in no uncertain terms. However I feel there is no justification for repeated strike action to achieve its aims. The hardship caused to the public is really saddening. I would not hesitate to label these strikes as a crime against society.

Perhaps you may remember that we had definite guidelines in undertaking harsh trade union action in the past. It was generally accepted that strike action should not be used for salary issues and others of a more personal nature. We confined strike action as a last resort to protest against irregular transfers and appointments to keep the health service out of political interference. We succeeded in achieving the latter aim to a great extent. We had regional strikes if a member of ours was obstructed by any one during work and police did not apprehend the offenders. I feel all those short lasting actions were justified as they were inevitable.

We also had a general understanding that we should not seek the support of trade unions in other fields for any reason. That would have made us under obligation to join them in their struggles. This was considered unacceptable as our service of caring for the sick cannot be mixed up with or compromised by any of their fields of activity.

What happens now is totally unacceptable. GMOA officials publicly calling general strikes is a bad trend. Doctors going on strike for general political issues like the ETCA are also unwarranted. For the first time in the history, you have allowed a political party leader to address the GMOA membership. As I already indicated to you personally, this should never have happened.

The net result of all this is that in the public eye, the GMOA has become equivalent to any other trouble making union in the public sector. The public has lost all respect for the GMOA and medical profession in general. It is inevitable that many suspect that your actions are a part of a larger campaign to create political instability.

I know you are a very caring paediatrician and a medical teacher doing your duty properly in the health service. You are respected by your members for the service rendered in getting their emoluments and other benefits on par with other comparable services.

The fact that, as president of the GMOA, you have done much work including publishing booklets and conducting workshops guiding doctors to better professional standards, is little known to many in the society.

Yet I believe that you have been the president of the GMOA for too long. You now lack new thinking and when in “power” you tend to ignore the general feelings of the membership. This is why even in the field of politics, I believe no one, however good he may appear, should be allowed to remain in power for more than two terms.

You should plan to step down when your current term expires. You can render a much greater service to society if you now devote full time to being a clinician. After all, paediatric neurology is a relatively new field that needs people like you with imagination and leadership qualities for further development.

I sincerely hope that you will take my advice in the same spirit that I give them.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Sarath Gamini De Silva

.

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Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project

During the great king Parakiramabahu’s tenure the Island of Elam, had been the treasure island of grains for entire South East Asia.

Today cross section of Jaffna people are facing grievous water problem through many unfortunate detriments, such as mismanagement of available water resources, pollution and contamination of the same, absence of accessible fresh water source for all coastal area dwellers for whom the trouble couples with absence of proper sewage drainage etc. The situation has worsened through bureaucratic irresponsibility and ignorance particularly the past governments of the need of the northern people.

 Actually water source had – has been a crisis right from the beginning of dwelling for the people of costal area since all wells dug very closer to sea areas springs only water with salinity. Vadamaradchchy, particularly Vadamaradchchy East, and all smaller islands west to the peninsula are  worst affected, and obviously these naturally hard working people had been and have been the most migratory people within the whole Island! Most people centrally located within peninsula have been using wells and irrigation off Nilavarai bottomless Well for farming agriculture. Present Status: Mallakam District Court determined that  Northern Power Company owned by Majority community is responsible for polluting and contaminating even the centrally located fresh water resources. It has been established the power company with total ignorance to the life and ecosystem, born out of "Ape-Aanduwa" mentality spilled the burnt diesel & grease into the best fertile land area without adhering to scientific hydro-carbon removal system.

An Honourable Member of Legislature Council of 1931 K. Balasingham, who saw Jaffna peoples’ strenuous efforts for the reach of drinking water particularly above mentioned costal dwellers, proposed to the Legislature Council a project to convert all the salt water lagoons to utilizable fresh water. His proposal was based on King Parakiramabahu’s adage and on facts that the Peninsula itself is resourceful for abundant of deep under-ground water, yet lacks utilizable totally. This grievously deterrent factor never had deterred Jaffna farmers to be very successful farmers prior to the war. 

Deterrent factors never had deterred Jaffna farmers to be very successful farmers pre-war period.

The Great Parakramabahu the King, of Polonnaruwa Kingdom once avowed that he would not allow a single drop of water from the skies to reach the ocean without using it for agriculture at least once.  The king to make this valuable quote true and practical, constructed the largest Parakrama Samudra reservoir so that to capture the rain water so that to be utilized for ancient agriculture and it was no wonder during the great king’s tenure (AD1140 to1186) the Island of Elam, had been the treasure island of grains for entire South East Asia. In fact Elam was the name for the Entire Island in spoken and in literatures during King Parakiramabahu’s tenure and before.

With the dawn of independence to the island Ceylon in 1948 Deputy Director Department of Irrigation Aarumugam proposed the Project, River for Jaffna. As it had been proposed by Irrigation Engineer Aarumugam the project has been named as “Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project”, but it has been a strange fact that project itself contained and based on six facets, as the name implies, which is surely cannot be a co-incidence. The main objective of Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project is to collect the rain water predominantly 3 - 4 months of Maha Season and save it into two lakes as utilizable fresh water, otherwise the both brackish lagoons that are always increasing threat for fresh water resources and healthy life and cultivation by the dwellers.

 Utilization of Natural Resource to the Maximum

The naturally rich resourceful Kanagarayan River that originates from Omanthai, easily crosses Puliyamkulam, Mankulam, and Kilinochchy of the Vanni greater land-area before draining into the East Elephant Pass Lagoon of Chundikulam; this Chundikulam Estuary (actually two number) is the point that gives origin to Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project. Jaffna Peninsula receives rain only in the four months of the Maha Season in a year, So that the main objective of this Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project is to collect the entire four months’ rain water that wastefully drain into the seas, and save it as utilizable fresh water for the entire Vadamaradchchy East land area and for the peninsula during drier months. Kanagarayan Aru would aid in sustaining this objective.

Elephant Pass Bridge is the only point (Neck) that joints the greater Vanni Land with smaller Peninsula. This neck point water have a wonderful character within itself that forecast the success of the Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project and, which as well would have surely inducted the planers to go ahead with this project! The wonderful character is, the water to the west of the narrow neck bridge is heavily salty that on evaporation give rise to salt, whereas the water to east of the bridge is fresh water, because the Kanagarayan River heavily drains off fresh water into the lagoon of the East of the bridge. At the West side of the Elephant Pass a closer barrage under the bridge would prevent the fresh water follow of the estuary mixing with the Sea in the west and as well shunt brackish water entering, is the location for the First prime facet of the project, so that the fresh water property in the East of the bridge is preserved and utilized properly. 

Elephant Pass Bridge is the only point (Neck) that joints the greater Vanni Land with smaller Peninsula. Red indicates Mulliyan Village Primary Health Care Center and far north the Vadamaradchchy Lagoon

Chundikulam 2^nd Estuary in Far East of East of the bridge lagoon drains its fresh water into the Indian Ocean through a narrow strip of land area, therefore the 2^nd important facet of the project is to construct a Dam-Spill-Gate that would prevent the wasting of fresh water off rainfall and Kanagarayan River, and would prevent flooding of the area due to over draining into the lagoon and may be the flooding of entire Northern Province as well. The third all important facet of the Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project is Mulliyan Canal; a canal of 12 meter wide to the stretch of 4 KM through the Mulliyan Village north of East Elephant Pass Lake would pump the fresh water of the same lake into the Lagoon of Vadamaradchchy, within the Peninsula, thus this Mulliyan Canal is the Heart of the Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project.

Lagoon of Vadamaradchchy begins from the village Aliyawalai in the south and pass through dwellings of Uduthurai, Marthunkerney, and Peninsula Lagoon Jetty, crosses Point Pedro and reaches Thondaman-Aaru before draining into the sea in closer proximity to the famous Selva-Sannidhi Murugan Temple where still the Kaparalai does and recite the Pooja similar to Katharagama Devalae, both unlike any other temple! 

 The fourth facet of the Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project is constructing an appropriate Dam-Spill-Gate  at Selva-Sannidhi similar to the Chundikulam one that would serve the dual purpose of preventing the  mix of brackish water with fresh water and flooding by the over following fresh water by enabling controlled spilling in to the sea. Though the Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project aims objectively to convert Vadamaradchchy Lagoon into a Freshwater Lake bordered by Selva-Sannidhi Dam spill in the north, Aliyawalai in the south and by the Vadamaradchchy Kalappu land in the East and west, yet there is a major constrain for this project, by the another salty lagoon named Uppaaru.

* Eastern Closer Barrage revitalized as Eastern Dam Spill Gate

This Uppaaru ends in Vallai west Open Plains in Vadamaradchchy itself and mixes with Vadamaradchchy Lagoon after originating from Ariyalai beach of Indian Ocean and Palk Bay South West of Jaffna Peninsula; Ariyalai is an urban area comes under Jaffna Municipal Council limits south of Jaffna Town and thus this heavily salty Uppaaru traverse the peninsula through many curls and curves north-east-wards, before opening into the Vadamaradchchy Lagoon near Vallai west Open Plains. Therefore this Uppaaru is heavily responsible for the two third of peninsula wells springing salt water and the Uppaaru impact is ever increasing.

Therefore the fifth and sixth facets of the Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project are Ariyalai Closer Barrage and the Uppaaru, is actually the Final Phase of the same project, once completed the initial Phase of converting the Vadamaradchchy Lagoon into Vadamaradchchy Lake of Fresh water; a process not sustainable unless the extensively hazardous Uppaaru becomes completely a Fresh water Lake through erecting a Closer Barrage at Ariyalai. Thus it is obvious that this so called first and second phase should go on simultaneously and go for hand in hand completion.

Thondaman-Aaru Selva-Sannidhi Dam-Spill-Gate under the Irrigation Department care

Anyhow the Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project was set in motion in 1950 at once, and the structures of Closer Barrages at Elephant Pass and Ariyalai and the Dam-Spill-Gate s at Chundikulam and Selva-Sannidhi Thondaman-Aaru, all have become ruins of witnessing the peninsula water resources becoming more brackish unabatedly with ever increasing intensity. There cannot be any other worst environmental catastrophe than this critical alteration of natural water sources becoming brackish and fertile lands becoming barren. Even the Mulliyan Canal dug up in 1950, to serve the fresh water into the “Vadamaradchchy Lake” from the East Elephant Pass Lake had become partially obliterated to serve as a continuous follow canal.

It is truly heartening and major relieve to note that Asian Development Bank (ADB) had come forward to finance the revived implementation of the Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project. The noticeable feature within the revitalized implementation proposal of ADB is inclusion of Sanitary Sewage Draining System, for the entire Peninsula which had been a long requirement of the peninsula, so that to prevent the pollution of underground water content by the seeping through fecal contents.   

When completed Vadamaradchchy Lagoon and Uppaaru would become two giant lakes of fresh water and pollution annihilated completely by Sanitary Sewage Draining System, Peninsula would revive the freshness of many wells and plenty of fresh water made available alleviating the long lasting water crisis and above all wells becoming salty would be prevented. Agriculture and cultivation would improve further.

The peninsula itself is a very small land area covered all around by plenty of brackish water and abundant marine and lagoon ecology to all three sides. Even in the fourth southern border only a narrow strip neck like land area otherwise all brackish and there are plenty of islands left with in the west with plenty enough to ensure the brackish/lagoon ecology, falsely feared become short of, if the project is completed. Therefore the said two inland lagoons becoming fresh water lakes would not have much ecological impact considering the above factual landscape of a smaller peninsula that just misses the definition of Small Island for Jaffna just by a strip of neck. It is reiterated here that there cannot be any other worst environmental catastrophe than the critical alteration of natural water sources becoming brackish and fertile lands becoming barren.     

Enough this 67 years of dormancy of a farsighted project that haplessly witnessed the peninsula becoming critically short of utilizable water, Reawaken the  Aarumugam River for Jaffna Project so that to completely reawaken the war torn Jaffna

Congratulations and Best wishes for all those who endeavoured to revive this revitalized project including Northern Provincial Council and C.V. Vigneswaran the Chief Minister!