Town that sweeps the nation

Since the 1960s, Waskaduwa came to be popular for the many saw mills it had with which emerged as a virtual cottage industry for brooms that were distributed around the country. Though a small town located between Panadura and Kalutara, Waskaduwa’s ‘lee mudalalis’ travelled across the land with their products.

The business which has now come down three generations was begun by two men Indradasa De Silva better known as Somachandra Mudalali and Myleris Silva while a third, Saldin Mudalali followed the trend by starting another saw mill. They made broom handles and treated rubber timber for pallets for containers. They also made brooms and ekel brooms which they distributed across the country.

The manufacturers bought the timber from the rubber plantation and used this timber for their work. Up to today the reputation of the mills for using only rubber timber still holds.

Myleris De Silva, the only surviving member of the first generation of businessmen, even created a machine to cut the broom handles which was used by the saw mills until an advanced Taiwan-made machine came to the market. His elder son improved the machine - run by two motors -- to run with just one but he doesn’t want to share his invention and keeps his technology for himself. “I went to a carpenter from Moratuwa who made picture frames and gave him the idea of how to get the stick round shaped. We had to do it in two halves unlike the foreign machine which is available now”, said Myleris De Silva

According to him there were no experts in this work at the beginning and it was this carpenter from Moratuwa who did the work and gradually other workers have trained under him and learnt the trade. At the beginning the mills had sawed different kinds of timber but with time it became limited to rubber.

“The broom handle business was started in 1959 by my father and two other men. Contractors provided our saw mills with 4-feet long planks from all areas Matugama, Agalawatta, from the Kalutara Ratnapura and Galle districts,” said Sarathweera De Silva, a son of Somachandra mudalali, explaining how the system has worked for about 50 years.

Between these three they provided brooms and coir ropes to almost all parts of the country, Somachandra Mudalali and Saldin Mudalali travelled to Jafna and the north while Myleris De Silva supplied to Colombo shops.

“We had most of our business in Jaffna but after the July 1983 riots that stopped. This area was the first to provide broom handles for the whole country”, said Sarathweera obviously proud of the history he himself is a part of.

Then came Sampath Saw Mills owned by G. Siril Silva the fourth competitor, who started to supply brooms and coir to the north. He followed in the footsteps of his father who also has a saw mill.

Even though trips to the North stopped after 1983 Siril still travels to some areas of the East. “I returned only yesterday from Trincomalee,” he said last week.

All the sons of these three men have followed their fathers and ventured into the business and most still hold on with the hope of a third generation taking it over after them.

Somachandra Mudalali’s four sons all have saw mills of their own with Sarathweera the second son managing the father’s original saw mill. “Our mother has done quite a lot for the business. When my father passed away in 1980 till I took over in 1987 it was our mother who managed the business. Today she is helping the youngest son in the family to run his business,” said Sarathweera.

The business trend grew and according to Sarathweera by the eighties there were about 15 saw mills in the area and in the nineties it doubled to 30. Many have learnt the trade from its pioneers and have ventured out to start on their own.

However things are not rosy for the saw mill owners compared to the situation about 10 years ago. All the businessmen face an acute shortage of raw material. However this is not because the country is running out of rubber wood. Timber is available but is limited in quantity and the competition is too fierce. Many complained that the prices demanded for a cubic metre of rubber log are too high for them to buy.

“In the past we quoted the prices for a log and we were able to look for quality and be choosy; now we have to buy at whatever the price they say and we can’t do anything about it. Sometimes the quality is not good and the quantity quoted is not there, but we can’t complain,” said Siril.

Out of the 30 saw mills that were buzzing with activity a few years ago almost half remain closed. Some of the owners have ventured into new businesses while the others are trying hard to survive. Walking around in the area I found out just how bad the situation is. Many workshops with mills are closed with no activity except for an occasional stray dog who has taken refuge in the ‘abandoned’ work sheds.

Some still run the saw mills at a loss because for many the mills are more than just a business. This is what they inherited from their fathers and what they want to one day hand it down to their sons.

“I want to hand this over to my youngest son, he won't be applying for university for if he does he might move away from the business,” said Siril. His two elder sons are both working as engineers.

But questions abound about the future of Waskaduwa. With changing times and high cost of timber, will there be a business to run for the next generation and for this town to continue to be the premier brooms' supplier to the rest of the country?