These places are used for building star hotels and posh restaurants. It is feared that pullukkulam in Jaffna town faces the same fate.
The governor of the Northern Province is showing great interest in Pullukkulam. The area behind Ashoka hotel in the centre of the Jaffna town is Pullukkulam. The governor wants to turn this area into a place of tourist recreation. The pavements and other place in this area have been renovated recently at a great cost.
Meanwhile work on deepening the lake at Pullukkulam has started this week. However the Municipal Council says no decision in this regard has been taken. The governor has been insisting the lake area be given to a person form the majority community on a long lease.
The idea behind this is to allow the majority communities form the south to earn a fat income. It is planned to turn this area into a tourist centre with boating facilities. This venture and opening up restaurants around the lake are attempted by the majority community. However no permission has been received form the Municipal administration for starting any such activity in the area up to last week.
In the meantime the Jaffna Municipality has started cleaning up the lake area this week. Jaffna mayor Yogeswary Pathkunam seems to give her fullest support to this activity. TNA members allege that the mayor has made some financial transaction thorough this act, while the mayor Yogeswary Pathkunam has alleged that the TNA members are trying to stop this development venture to achieve political gains.
In the meantime some social minded people from the Jaffna town say that these sort of income oriented issues should be handled through the tender process where any individual in the country can get the tender by quoting the highest price and also with the permission of the Municipal Council.
Apart from this natural environment such as this can be administered by the Municipality itself and the income gained could be used for developing the city. But the plan of giving this project to the higher ups in the government such as state officials and army officers of the majority community is something that cannot be accepted, they say.
Will the government give the Vihara Maha Devi Park in Colombo which belongs to Colombo Municipal council to a private person? If the government does so, this procedure of giving Pullukkulam lake area to an individual can also be accepted. This should be debated and a decision on whether income giving resources could be given to private people should be taken by the council. But deciding this factor through a political oriented mind, may give way only to a planned aggression, these social minded people opine
GTN