The Coastal Conservation Sri Lanka still seems to be haunting after Tsunami
Coastal Conservation of Sri Lanka again strike with its "good old" habbit of bugging the community of Unawatuna by making deadlines for clearing the 35m zone by removing the 56 marked places as per in the list which they made after Tsunami.
Mr. Anil Premarathna, Deputy Director CCD, said the action again confirmed in the meeting with President, but always with certain allowence for some communication.
People in the area strongly opposed to this cold action by the goverment and urge to resolved the matter without "pain", as the community up to date put lots of their own inputs to build up the present Unawatuna without any goverment support.
The chairmen of UTDS, Mr Preshan Dissanayake said that, Unawatuna as a small resort and valuble destination in Tourism in this country by contributing a considerable amout of foriegn money to the economy as well as a large number of job for the locals should not face to such "shakes" as it is still recovering from the nightmares of Tsunami.
Establishment of Habaraduwa Coastal Managment Committy (HCMC) is a remarkable step towards the course of finding effective gate ways to communicate with the people, said the chairmen of Local council on the innaguration meeting of HCMC.
This forum is consisted by all the government bodies for community development and community based organizations in the area. UTDS act on behalf of the Unawatuna area under the CBO catogory. This forum is chaired by the Chairmen of Local council Mr. Bandupala.
The basic funds which need to commence the program been supported by UTDS and further funds will raise within the implementation procedures of the project it self. The main objectives of the project been concentrated into two levels within the project scope as primary and secondary approaches.
In the context of primary approach the focus will be set on to understand the physiological stability of the children of the area, which been imposed to Tsunami impact way before and less address in the past and up to date. It is a fact that up to now the concern on this issue been neglected or improperly concern due various reasons and further prolonging will leads to critical complexities in child physiological aspect.
Chandima Weerakody, the chair person of Southern Development Authority (SDA) also attend to the meeting and had very clear discussion about the future landscape of the area.
UTDS signed an agreement with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to implement a cleaning project for Unawatuna. This been initiated under UNDP’s Transition Programme on the basis of cash for work and 80% of the funding is goes to the community. Rest of the funding should allocate to buy the necessary tools to support with the practices.
This agreement between UTDS and UNDP was signed at Thambapanni Retreat, Unawatuna on February 23rd by Wuria Karadaghy, the Program Manager, UNDP Transition Program and President of UTDS. The volume of this project is Rs. 2,230,290.00 and will be practice for a month period commenced from 02nd March 2005. Under this project 200 people from the community will provide with tempary jobs for a period of one month time, with a payment of Rs. 350/00 per person per day.
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