]]>

« Home | The impact of audio-visual media by R. Somasiri//-->  »

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Estate gemming may spell doom to miners: MP by By Deepal V. Perera

The government's decision to allow plantation companies to engage in gem mining would throw the whole industry into a crisis, charged Ratnapura district UNP MP Mahinda Ratnanthilaka.

He said: "In 1996 the then government headed by the President gave the management control of the State Plantation Corporation to private companies under the Public Enterprise Reforms Commission (PERC). In that there is a clause that companies can only engage in agriculture-related activities and not in any mining activities. During the UNF government's tenure private companies constantly made representations to get permission to engage in gem mining, which were turned down. Now the government is going to permit these companies to engage in gem mining threatening the employment of over one million workers engaged in the industry in the Ratnapura district".

He pointed out that ever since the gem mining industry started in the 18th century, these plantations belonging to the government were kept untouched.


E-mail this post



Remenber me (?)



All personal information that you provide here will be governed by the Privacy Policy of Blogger.com. More...

About me

  • My name is Phoenix Project
  • From Colombo, Western, Sri Lanka
  • This blog concerns the Sri Lankans fight against LTTE terrorism.LTTE is a ruthless terror outfit which fights for an ethnically pure, separate Tamil homeland for Tamils living in Sri Lanka since 1983. The outfit is well known for its extreme tribalism and nefarious crimes against soft targets specially the women and children. During its two and half decade long terrorist war against Sri Lankan people, LTTE has killed over 70,000 people mostly civilians in its ethnic cleansing raids, indiscriminate bomb attacks, suicide blasts, etc. LTTE is also in top of the UN's list of shame for using child soldiers in war. As a tactical measure the outfit uses only young female cadres and male child soldiers for the front lines.

  • My profile
Powered for Blogger
by Blogger Templates