Financial Times

Sharp disparities between Central Bank, World Bank consumer surveys
The accuracy of the Central Bank’s consumer surveys was questioned at the launch of the latest survey recently. “Generally, the Central Bank consumer survey concludes that there is an overall improvement in the socio economic conditions in Sri Lanka and sectoral disparities are narrowing, but how far it is true?” asked Dr Vishaka Hidellege, the South Asia regional director of Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG).

She made these observations at the launch of the consumer survey report held at the Central Bank auditorium. She pointed out in the area of education, healthcare, services and energy and disabled statistics, the consumer survey contradicts the survey carried out by the World Bank and other surveys carried out by local agencies in Sri Lanka.

“In the area of education the survey concludes that there is an overall increase where as a World Bank survey carried out by South Asian Human Development Sector in fact reveals that there is an 18 percent drop out in the compulsory education age of 5 – 14. This shows a different picture,” Dr Hidellege said.

She went on to say that the report does not highlight the disparities in facilities among urban, rural and estate sectors and the report is also silent about the quality of education, as these are vital in measuring the overall improvement in the education sector.” “According to World Bank survey report most of the dropouts are from poor families, conflict areas, and geographically marginal areas. These aspects do not come out in the report very clearly. It would have been better if this report also had highlighted these aspects,” she said.

“According to the survey report access to electricity also improved overall. The survey further says access to electricity in the rural area has increased to 71 percent. I would question whether it is a true reflection of the state of access to electricity in the rural sector,” she said.

“The government electricity policy is to provide electricity to 85 percent of the people by 2015. So we have not yet achieved that and we have some statistics, where in Wanni districts access to electricity is less than 30 percent and in Moneragla it is between 30 – 40 percent. So I don’t think that we have achieved 71 percent electrification by now in rural areas. It may be true in the urban areas,” she pointed out.

She went on to say the survey does not highlight the quality of service of electricity as it is vital in measuring the overall performance of the improvement in electricity access.

“The survey concludes there is an overall improvement in the nutrition however there are some isolated surveys on food and health care that reveal there is a problem of nutrition in Sri Lanka especially in the rural sector. These need to be further looked into,” she pointed out.

“The survey on disabled numbers are also not satisfactory. A survey conducted by Nawajeewana, which is specialized in conducting surveys on the disabled, put high numbers on the disabled lists. Where as the Central Bank survey says the disability is very low. It is unbelievable in this country, where 20 years of civil war and natural disasters, have affected many people. When considering this having low disabled statistics is far from true. This aspects need to be looked into,” she said.

She requested the Central Bank to further study on gender disparity, disabled people, and access to facilities and education taking a holistic approach. She also emphasized that due consideration should be given to disaster aspects in conducting consumer surveys.

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