“Ubiquitous public officials -Grama Niladari Piyasa”
I read with interest Kussi Amma Sera’s recent column on Grama Seva Niladaris (GSN). Assigning a GSN to a particular village is a well-established administrative norm and accordingly the GSN was expected to physically establish his office within the administrative boundary of the village to which he was appointed and liaise his/her official work by providing a productive and efficient service to the village households. This system of administrative arrangement was in-effect beneficial to both parties and the most notable advantage was that the householders had the easy access of meeting the GSN and bring redresses to their grievances at the village itself without incurring any transport cost.
However, this well-established norm has been negated presumably by the District Secretary, Colombo by bringing highly populated five GSN divisions, namely Kirulapona, Kirula, Pamankada East, Kollupitiya and Bambalapitiya under a new concept called “Grama Niladari Piyasa” at Park Road, Colombo 5, at the cost of the household community living in these highly populated five administrative zones.
This centralization of siting GSNs well away from the particular zone has brought immense hardship to the households and one has to travel more than five miles to meet the GSN by incurring heavy transport expenditure. Can you just imagine the hassle a household member has to undergo from Kolllupitiya or Bambalapitiya to meet the GSN at Park Road office where no public transport facilities are available? A traveller has to incur at least Rs 1,000 to Park Road office for up and down from Kollupitiya.
In the good old days, when the system of Village Headman operated almost 50 years ago, the Village Headman knew each and every household by name, its location and family members. Such a close rapport enabled him to discharge his duties even without visiting a particular residence, in case the necessity arose. However, the above five administrative zones of Colombo have recorded comparatively high densities in population over the years with different ethnicities. In the Colombo district, obviously there is a heavy concentration of people and population density which had been 2,605 persons per one km in 1981 had increased to 3,438 persons as per the census carried out in 2012. Now the population density would have well exceeded 6,000 persons. Now the question to be raised is could a centralized system of GSN effectively discharge its services to the highly populated household community.
Residents of Kirulapona have been attempting to contact the lady GSN of Kirulapona on the telephone number prominently displayed in her office in order to ascertain the vaccination date reserved for the Kirulapona Division but it has been consistently switched off for the last one month. Had she housed her office in the Kirulapona Division, residents could have easily approached her. The Kirulapona GSN is one of the divisions that has not yet been earmarked for the vaccination programme though the MOH office says that a convenient date would be decided in consultation with the GSN Office, passing the buck entirely to the GSN. It is unfortunate that Kussi Amma Sera and her acolytes Sammiya and Mabel Rasthiyadu have escaped their attention to the untold suffering of the people living in this GSN in this battered area of coronavirus.
Will the District Secretary, Colombo intervene in this short-sighted move and correct this ludicrous administrative arrangement that has caused irremissible blunder to the householders in the aforesaid five GSN Divisions?
Septuagenarian