Financial Times

Desperate coir weavers say promises made, not kept
P H Premaratne, owner of a two-cutter coir fibre mill at Telwatte near the Peraliya train disaster caused by the devastating tsunami, has still not recovered from the crisis when the giant waves completely swept away his mill.

More than 25,000 coconut husks and all equipment perished and he has been reduced to working as a labourer. In the southern province bordering the coast a large number of families depend on the coconut coir industry as a cottage industry. In the Hikkaduwa area alone many families spread over Malawenne, Thotagamuwa, Seenigama, Telwatte, Peraliya, Kalupe, and Nawadampola villages are dependent on this trade.

Most of these households have their own water pits where the husks are soaked for several months to be pounded to extract coir for weaving. The tsunami disaster emptied all the pits and now those who have come back to the trade of weaving coir are dependent on the few coir mills for their supply.
These small coir mills are now rare in the southern coastal stretch.

At Pelevinne junction, Peraliya there is one such mill that has been revived post-tsunami. P H Ranjith Rohan said the entire mill was destroyed and around Rs 80,000 worth of coconut husks swept away. The loss was more than Rs 500,000. He has now bought new machines after mortgaging jewellery and property. Six people are working in the mill and they supply coir to around 200 families.

Rohan said that they issue coir free of charge and the weavers return the coir in woven- string form. These are purchased at the rate of Rs 32 per kilo of woven strings. Some 3,200 husks could be turned into coir per day.
M G Wilson who works at Rohan’s mill was a copra drier before the tsunami struck. He lost 10,000 nuts in the drying form and another 7,000 coconuts that were collected for drying.

All these traders and industrialists told The Sunday Times FT that so far no one has come to their rescue. Some of them said that some officials visited them and noted their losses and made lots of promises --- but never came back. Not a single businessman or an industrialist was helped by any officials.
Some of them said that they have lost all their belongings to tsunami and also in some cases their dear ones too.

At Paluwatta, Dodanduwa a trio of women led by Ms Liyanage Dayawathie were weaving the coir. Dayawathie said that they are given only Rs 16 per kilo for their products and they would be working only for few hours.

Dayawathie has two children who are married. Her husband goes fishing and after completing the housework, during her leisure she takes the weaving wheel with two of her neighbours. She said that by weaving coir strings they earn some money to support the home. She said most of the womenfolk were engaged in this part time cottage industry but after the tsunami almost all of those in the coir strings weaving industry stopped weaving for obvious reasons like losing their homes, dear ones and all their property.

With problems mounting, they point out that if they are not assisted, this age-old cottage industry especially in the south will die a natural death. Weavers are appealing to the authorities to assist them to revive this dying industry, also as a means of uplifting the rural economy.

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