The Government is re-demarcating boundaries of Divisional Secretaries and Grama Niladhari divisions in keeping with demographic changes in the country over the past five years, a senior minister said yesterday.
The newly appointed Minister for Public Administration and Home Affairs John Seneviratne told The Sunday Times the move was aimed largely at tackling the shift in population and to remove excesses.
“At present there are many AGA divisions which are finding it difficult to cope with the increase in population in certain electorates, while on the other hand there are too many Grama Niladhari divisions for certain areas.
“The idea is to streamline the present boundaries in order to make it more workable,” he said.
The Minister explained at the end of the day there would be a reduction of some officials in certain areas and an increase in others. “In certain instances areas will be amalgamated to suit the prevailing situation”, Mr. Seneviratne added.
“Then there is the case of overlapping where a single AGA division has to handle two or more areas in different electorates. This naturally leads to confusion thereby doubling the work of the AGA”, he said.
Government has also appointed a 13-member Committee to examine the issues towards this end and it has one month to come up with the necessary recommendations, he added.
“The Committee headed by the former Governor of the Central Bank H.B. Dissanayake will call for suggestions, ideas and recommendations from the public and civil organizations as well”, he said.
However the Minister would not give the time frame of when the new divisions would be set up, but only to add Government was keen to implement it at the very earliest.
The Secretary to the Delimitation Committee Ms. S.K. Weeratunga said changes will be confined only to electorates within each district. “The district boundaries will remain the same”, she added.
At present there are some 300 Divisional Secretaries and an estimated 14,000 Grama Niladharis throughout the country. |
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