A top government advisor said that if things happened according to what the media (‘paththarawala’) said, “we would neither have won the war nor defeated terrorism.” These comments were made by Basil Rajapaksa, MP and Senior Presidential Advisor, when he opened the old Salusala store under a new name “Lak Sasusala” last week at Jawatte Road, Colombo.
Mr Rajapaksa said that reviving Salusala is reviving history as spinning and clothes have definite historical bearings in that when Prince Wijeya stepped into Sri Lanka, he met Kuveni while she was spinning cotton to make clothes. He said that cotton was grown in Hambantota in the 1970s which were used for the handloom industry in the country.
Fifty percent of the cotton needs for textile industry in the country was thus supplied from Hambantota. Mr Rajapakse said that later it was preferred to purchase cotton bales from India. Similarly cotton thread was imported and later that was stopped. Cotton cloth was importing signaling the death of cotton cultivation in Sri Lanka.
He said that in the same way they have revived Salusala they would revive the textile industry and get back to growing cotton to be self-sufficient in this field and weaving textiles in this country. |
E-mail