Poverty In Sri Lanka
From the day we won our independence from our colonial masters we had the problem of poverty.I think it dates back to the day of Sinhal monarchy.But there were no standards to differentiate the poor from the rich.Since Sri Lanka had a self sufficient economy the use of money & trading had no great impact.Even the people who were called poor had at least few paddy fields.The aftermath of the introduction of market economy “the term ” poverty came to exsisit.Since the development was limited to few areas , the knowledge,technology,expertise,money,investments etc got limited to the so called areas.Resources were not properly distributed.The true meanings of free education was never achived.As a result the growing of the middle class was very slow.The succesive governments did not do anything long term for the development of the masses .Because it was their voters.They kept the masses at the bay.Introduction of social welfare systems as “Samurdhi,Janasaviya” lost its initiative.It was just a propaganda machine & a voting machine for the politicians.It did not have a proper plan.As long as the social welfare systems are not properly planed & as long as their objectives are not decribed & achieved poverty & the poor will live for a very long time.We will find enough & more politicians emerging as heros of masses who would wow to erdicate poverty & simply forget it.Good thing about Sri Lanka is that now we see the expanation of the middle class.It will make huge differences in time to come.
